July
11
Tags
How did the Internet start?
In 1945, George Orwell coined the term “cold war” to describe a prolonged period of political confrontation between the United States and Russia. By the 1950’s, there were several military crises as the two superpowers were constantly trying to out-perform each other. Few people today know that the “Space Race” was the major stimulus for the development of the internet. In 1957, Russia took the lead with the launch of the first earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik1. America hastily increased its investment in technology and this led to rapid progress in the development of the computer and the idea of linking computers as a communication network under war conditions.
By the 1970s, the ARPANET had progressed from linking four US universities to a network of universities around the world. The mid 1980s saw the first boom in personal computers and by 1990 there were more than 300,000 hosts globally which reached a million within two years. The digital age accelerated to the point where by mid 2012 there were almost 2.5 billion internet users out of a total world population of about 7 billion. At some not too distant future, computer access will be almost universal…and it was all started by the Cold War.
CineMuseFilms 
Thank you Richard, for the progressive timeline. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know where Sputnik1 is today, maybe it’s still floating somewhere in the atmosphere. Oh wait, we could google that couldn’t we? I’m sure it would feel slightly out of place with all the new technology in the sky, however it may have no feelings, in which case it would be hard to personify.
I am interested in your blogs and I will attempt to follow you through our assignment process in Comm121. I’m Eugene and my blog address is eforsberXInternetBlog121.wordpress.com, I’m yet to make a post but will do so shortly. Cheers. Also just check your second last paragraph and your reference to the 1900’s, imagine if there were 300,000 hosts in 1900? The blogosphere would be even more tech savvy than it already is!
LikeLike
Thanks for visiting and for your forensic attention to detail; I’ve corrected the typo which, as you say, gives a very different historical view. Look forward to following your blog. cheers, richard
LikeLike