The Internet and the Web are parts of our daily lives. How did they begin? What networking protocols and programming languages work behind the scenes to display a web page? The Internet, the interconnected network of computer networks, seems to be everywhere today. You can’t watch television or listen to the radio without being urged to visit a website. Even newspapers and magazines have their place on the Internet. It is possible that you may be reading an electronic copy of this book that you downloaded over the Internet. With the increased use of mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, being connected to the Internet has become part of our daily lives.
The Internet began as a network to connect computers at research facilities and universities. Messages in this network would travel to their destinations by multiple routes or paths, allowing the network to function even if parts of it were broken or destroyed. The message would be rerouted through a functioning portion of the network while traveling to its destination. This network was developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)—and the ARPAnet was born. Four computers (located at University of California, Los Angeles; Stanford Research Institute; University of California, Santa Barbara; and the University of Utah) were connected by the end of 1969.
As time went on, other networks, such as the National Science Foundation’s NSFnet, were created and connected with the ARPAnet. Use of this interconnected network, or Internet, was originally limited to government, research, and educational purposes. The ban on commercial use of the Internet was lifted in 1991.
The growth of the Internet continues—Internet World Stats reported that over 4.1 billion users, about 54% of the world’s population, were using the Internet.
When the restriction on commercial use of the Internet was lifted, the stage was set for future electronic commerce. However, while businesses were no longer banned, the Internet was still text based and not easy to use. The further developments addressed this issue.
Things have moved on dramatically since then and we, the good folks at Country Web Services, are here to help your business move on too. Please don't hesitate to contact us to find out more.