How Did the Internet Get Its Start?

The internet is a daily fixture in our lives, and it all started with the diligent work of Department of Defense-funded researchers in the 1960s. Learn how ARPANET bloomed into the internet as we know it in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet-start.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum.
Here ah the Internet, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, the cause
of and solution to all our problems, Believe it or not,
the bastion of knowledge and monger of misinformation from which

(00:23):
you're listening to this very podcast all started with a
single satellite. It was nineteen fifty seven when the then
Soviet Union launched Sputneck, which became the first human made
object to orbit the Earth. Americans were shocked by the news.
The Cold War was at its peak, and the United

(00:43):
States and the Soviet Union considered each other enemies, and
if the Soviet Union could launch satellite into space, it
could probably launch a missile to hit North America. So
in nineteen fifty eight, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the
Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, as a direct response

(01:04):
to Sputnik's launch. ARPA's purpose was to give the United
States a technological edge over other countries and perhaps specifically,
the Soviet Union. One important part of ARPA's mission was
computer science. In the nineteen fifties, computers were enormous devices
that filled entire rooms. They had a fraction of the

(01:25):
power and processing ability you can find in the cell
phone in your pocket. Many computers could only read magnetic
tape or punch cards, and there was no way to
network computers together. If you wanted to port information from
one machine to another, you had to carry boxes of
those punch cards or reels of that magnetic tape, and
you couldn't transfer information from one type of computer to another.

(01:49):
They all had to be similar machines running the same
operating system. ARPA aimed to change that. There had been
theories written about how computers could change the world through
their ability to process data, and about how they could
be linked together to increase that processing power, but those
theories had never been put into practice. So ARPET enlisted

(02:11):
the help of a company called Bolt, Barneck and Newman
or BBN to create a computer network, and the network
had to connect four computers running at research facilities around
California on four different operating systems. They called the Network,
which they established in nineteen sixty nine ARPINET. Without Arpinet,

(02:32):
the Internet wouldn't look or behave the way it does today.
It might not even exist. Arpinet's designers had to come
up with a common set of rules that the network
would follow in order for the computers to communicate with
each other without crashing the whole system. These rules are
called protocols. Although other groups were working on ways to

(02:53):
network computers together, the engineers behind arpinet established some of
the protocols still used on the Internet today, TCPIP and FTP. Moreover,
without the motivation and funding from ARPA, it may have
taken many more years before anyone tried to find ways
to join regional networks together into a larger system, But

(03:15):
that got underway almost immediately after Arpinet came online and
began growing to include other computers around the US. In
nineteen seventy three, engineers began to look at ways to
connect Arpinet to a new ARPA project, packet radio networks
or pr nets. These packet radio networks were early mobile networks.

(03:36):
The connected computers, some housed in large operable vans, via
radio transmitters and receivers, so instead of sending data across
phone lines, these computers used radio waves. It took three years,
but in nineteen seventy six engineers successfully connected the two networks.

(03:57):
Then in nineteen seventy seven technicians joinin ArbNet and pr
net to an internationally designed computer network called the satellite
network or satnet, which had also had its start in
nineteen seventy three. They called this connection between multiple networks
inter networking, or the Internet for short. Other early computer

(04:18):
networks soon joined. In nineteen ninety, a computer scientist from
England named Tim berners Lee developed a system designed to
simplify navigation on the Internet. In time, the system became
known as the Worldwide Web. It didn't take long for
some people to mistake the Internet and the Web as

(04:39):
the same thing, but the Internet is a global interconnection
of computer networks. The Worldwide Web is a way to
navigate this massive network. It's like comparing an ocean to
a ship. There are other ships in the ocean of
the Internet, but the Worldwide Web is the most popular.

(05:00):
Most early Internet users were government and military employees, graduate students,
and computer scientists, but using the world Wide Web, the
Internet became much more accessible. Colleges and universities began to
connect to the Internet, then hobbyists and members of the
public and businesses soon followed. By nineteen ninety four, internet

(05:22):
commerce had become a reality, with pizza Hut being one
of the first, if not the first online merchants. Pizza
Net was a program piloted by a franchise in Santa Cruz, California.
You could go online to pizza dot net, fill out
a form with your delivery info and order, and it
would be delivered. It worked by submitting the data from

(05:43):
the forum to a server in Pizza Hut's home base
in Wichita, which then sent the order to a computer
at the restaurant in Santa Cruz, where an employee would
receive it and call you to confirm the order. Several
organizations and committees formed to help shape the Internet into
to what it is today. They included the Internet Activities Board,

(06:04):
and the US Federal Research Internet Coordinating Committee and Federal
Networking Council, among others. These groups work to establish the
rules and standards that make it possible for different computer
networks to work together, and today the Internet is more
complex than ever. It connects computers, satellites, mobile devices, and

(06:26):
other gadgets together in a massive network millions of times
more intricate than the original Apronet and the thing we
owe it all to a nebulously threatening, silvery beeping ball
that once orbited miles above Earth's surface. Today's episode is

(06:46):
based on the article how did the Internet Start? On
how stuffworks dot com, written by Jonathan Strickland. Brainstuff is
production of iHeartRadio in partnership with housetuffworks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.