RE: Media myths (Was Townsend)

["Larry Lovering" <larry.lovering@cox.net>]

From: A. Joseph Ross
> Subject: Re: Media myths (Was Townsend)
>
>
> On 15 Jan 2003 at 13:02, Dan Billings wrote:
>
> > The truth is the Internet developed from a milatary reserach
> network that
> > was first created before Gore was elected to Congress.  Gore supported
> > expansion of the Internet into civilian uses, but the statement above
> > overstates his role.
>
> The ARPAnet was not the Internet.  Al Gore apparently did take
> the initiative in opening the
> net to civilian use, which was what created the Internet as we
> know it today.
>


Much of what is misunderstood about the Internet is why it was created in
the first place.  Besides Al Gore, the City of Los Angeles credits itself
with the inventing of the Internet.  But is was in Cambridge that much of
the seed that became the components of the ARPANET, which linked three
universities doing military research work (UCLA, UCSB and the University of
Utah) with the Stamford Research Institute (SRI).

In 1969, the DOD set out the contracts, based on work that BBN did in
Cambridge.  What is core to the success of the Internet is in the routing of
the traffic, the IMP computer was the first router, developed in Cambridge
and never patented (Cisco was formed to further develop the routing hardware
as a result of BBN's IMP).

Many things we take for granted, the routing, work on the TCP/IP protocol,
telnet, FTP, the "@" sign in email addressing and email, were largely
developed by the "Wizards Who Stay Up Late" at BBN.  The first email was
sent through the ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972.

In 1988, the year George Bush was elected, the dismantling of the ARPANET
began, to stand alone as the Internet.  By that time, over 4.000 hobbyist
bulletin boards were on the Internet.  A year later, over 100,000 hosts were
on the Internet.

My former company, Genuity, which was formed out of BBN's Internet business,
has a timeline that shows their history and involvement with the internet.
See http://www.genuity.com/about/timeline/index.htm

-Larry
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