How the Internet Changed History

How the Internet Changed History — page 1 — CHAPTER 1 THE INTERNET IS BORN he date was October 29 1969 At 10 30 p m Dr Leonard Kleinrock a professor at the University of California Los Angeles UCLA stood in his laboratory surrounded by fellow professors and students He connected a computer to a large metal box the size and shape of a refrigerator The box was an interface message processor IMP At the same time several hundred miles away at Stanford Research Institute in California a second computer was connected to another IMP Long distance telephone circuits connected the two IMPs to other each

How the Internet Changed History — page 2 — 9990199 HE RP 6 In 2007 Dr Kleinrock reenacted how the first Internet communication was made between the Stanford Research Institute and

How the Internet Changed History — page 3 — THE INTERFACE MESSAGE PROCESSOR Physicist and computer designer Wesley Clark first proposed the interface message processor IMP IMPs would be minicomputers designed to handle the connection of computers to Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ARPANET They would provide an interface between their home computer and distant computers All IMPs would use a single consistent software program rather than needing a separate program to connect each computer In December 1968 the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency ARPA awarded the contract to design the IMP to Bolt Baranek and Newman based in Cambridge Massachusetts Seated at the UCLA computer was Charley Kline an undergraduate student Kline's job was to type the first message to be sent over the brand new Internet the command LOGIN First Kline got on the telephone with his counterpart at Stanford Then he typed the letter L Over the phone Kline asked Have you got the L The Stanford colleague replied Got the L Then Kline typed the O Have you got the O Got the 0 Then he typed the G and the Stanford system crashed By accident the first message sent over the Internet was LO On the next attempt the word LOGIN arrived safely Kleinrock later described this event as the day the infant Internet uttered its first words Of course at that point the Internet was so new it did not yet have a name Many exciting things happened in 1969 but to most people the event that surpassed all others was the July 20 Apollo 11 moon landing At the time most technology buffs thought this would be the decade's supreme moment the moment that would define the future But it was the event almost no one noticed when two computers several hundred

How the Internet Changed History — page 4 — miles apart first talked to each other that would more profoundly change the way humans live Life before the Internet Consider a teen living in 1969 It is Monday morning and she has not talked with her best friend since Friday Last night her boyfriend called and they talked for five minutes before her mother made her hang up The phone is on the wall in the hallway near the living room where the family is often watching television She has little privacy She really wants to talk with her friend about her phone conversation Would her boyfriend ask her to the prom Would her mother take her shopping to buy a new dress Plus she is worried about her term paper She has to go to the public library to do research if any books are available How wonderful she thought if she could talk with her friends privately anytime she wanted do her research and maybe even buy her dress without all this hassle LEONARD KLEINROCK Dr Leonard Kleinrock received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT in 1963 He has spent the last 50 years at UCLA as a distinguished professor of computer science Kleinrock has received many honors for his leadership in founding the Internet In 2007 he received the National Medal of Science the highest science honor in the United States Dr Kleinrock is now working on smart spaces whereby he says cyberspace comes out from behind the screen and moves out into your physical space so that there will be intelligence and embedded technology in the walls of your room in your desk in your fingernails

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