What we know today as the Internet has had a long and complicated history as well as many challenges to achieve the importance that it has today. This technology that has managed to revolutionize the world and its inhabitants is full of technological and organizational aspects which are not current, but come from many years ago.
The history of the Internet consists of a series of events that have occurred over time after the Cold War that explain how it was born and what was the evolution of this important current tool.
- Background
- Origin of the Internet
- Evolution
- Present
- Stages in the history of the Internet
- Who invented it
- Importance
Background
The main antecedent that started the birth of the Internet was the Cold War in 1969 when, as a result of the need to communicate between the military, what was known at that time as Arpanet was created . The military purpose was the main antecedent and this technology was created by the Pentagon of the United States with the aim of being able to survive in the face of a possible nuclear attack , in this way the first tcp ip protocols emerged, which are still used today.
Origin of the Internet
The true origin of the Internet arises due to the enmity that existed between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War, who were looking for a way to better position themselves in the military and technological field, however, the formal birth of This technology or communication networks was created thanks to the creation of a network between computers known as ARPANET, created by the Ministry of Defense of the North American country.
Evolution
As we mentioned earlier, the evolution of the Internet basically started from its origin in the Cold War . The United States was in charge of creating a network for military use in case of a possible attack by Russia, with the aim of being able to obtain information more quickly. The first network that existed was Arpanet , which had four computers located in different North American universities . A few years later, the network already had a total of 40 computers that had managed to be connected.
With its growth, Arpanet became an obsolete network, which is why the TCP / IP protocol was created , which became a standard means in computer networks . Little by little the network began to grow and managed to reach the rest of the world, mainly for academic and research purposes . In 1895, the Internet was already known to the whole world and it was then that it went from a textual aspect to introduce other types of mechanisms, such as video games .
Some time later, hyperlinks began to be used and in this way the WWW or world spider web is shaped . It allowed to link logical information through the networks and the contents were programmed using hypertext languages that also had a series of labels that gave specific function to the contents. In 1993, Marc Andreesen managed to create the ” Mosaic ” browser and then Netscape . With these inventions, the Internet began to develop, improve and grow very quickly, becoming what we can find today.
Present
Today, the Internet is a technology that does not stop in terms of growth , development and innovation . Constant changes are made in its communication channels in order to increase the speed with which information can be sent and, in the same way, the speed at which data is received. The modern societies used everything related to information technology and communications in all areas giving the Internet the importance with which it enjoys today.
Stages in the history of the Internet
The stages that occurred throughout the history of the Internet are the following:
First stage
This stage is based on the creation of the Internet itself as a type of information network that originated in the 60s. Its main use was military and could be used by a very small number of people, mainly by engineers and developers. It was a stage full of experiments, analysis and studies that managed to improve the network until the end of the 90s.
Second stage
This stage began in 1994, when the Internet finally became public and people then had the possibility of being able to access the network. Institutions and companies that had computerized systems were the first to use it as the service was very expensive and, furthermore, it could only be used by qualified personnel . For this reason, this stage is known as the enterprise network stage .
Third stage
After the year 2000 we found the third stage in which the costs of using the Internet were reduced considerably and thanks to the simplification of technology , it became possible for people to start using the network. It was at this stage that web 2.0 or social web was born as it was also known at that time.
Present
At the present stage, the Internet is perhaps the most important medium that all individuals have at hand. It became a web for people that practically anyone with a phone or a computer can access. The speed of the Internet improved significantly during this stage and began to be used to inform about different types of events, to maintain contact with other people and even to play games.
Who invented it
Originally, the Internet was invented by DARPA whose acronym in Spanish stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency for Defense, an American organization that was looking for a means, during the Cold War , to be able to share and obtain different types of information and to share related data with military research among universities.
Importance
Today the Internet has become the most important means of communication in the world. In addition to being completely democratic because anyone can express their thoughts. It interferes positively or negatively in all aspects of the human being, and not only of man, but of entire countries. It is considered one of the most important tools in the world as it drives important changes in society and the opportunity for growth .
It is also the main source for obtaining information and is one of the largest sources of work today. It is thanks to it that people can communicate when there are thousands of kilometers of distance between them, the news can be made known more easily and the generation of content makes life much easier. The communication that is obtained thanks to the Internet is widely used for research , as a means of education and even to be able to carry out group discussions.
The purchases online , investments in the stock market, thousands of possibilities to find employment or to perform different types of activities are easy to find thanks to the Internet so it is considered that its importance increases daily.