Definition of the Internet

The internet is simply a network of tens of thousands of computer networks with over a million computer systems that allows us to search, exchange, and retrieve information electronically.

How the Internet Developed

 In the late 1960’s, the United States Department of Defense, through its Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), funded research into the establishment of a decentralized computer network.  From the beginning, some of the developers and researchers saw the advantages of a network in which computer systems of differing types could communicate.  They also foresaw the development of a community among the users of this network.  The network, named ARPANET, linked researchers at universities, laboratories, and some military labs.

        The 1970’s saw the further development of the network throughout the world.  There were less than one hundred sites on these networks.  In the early 1980’s, other networks around the world were established

In the late 1980’s the National Science Foundation funded the development of a network to connect supercomputer centers in the United States with over one hundred thousand sites by 1989.  Other countries were also developing networks as well.  This worldwide collection of networks and computer systems communicating according to the same protocols has come to be what we call the Internet or World Wide Web today.

In 1995, the NSF terminated all direct support and supervision of the Internet.  The Internet belongs to the people.   The explosive growth of the Internet and the inclusion of commercial networks and services has been accompanied by an astounding increase in the population of Internet users.  Computer researchers and programmers have developed the rules or protocols (http, for example)  so that different types of computers and computer systems can send and receive information.   They have written the computer languages (HyperText Markup Language HTML)  so that documents on the WWW (Web pages) can be constructed.   In other words, if you can turn on a computer, you can surf the Internet.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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