Internet History

    You can compare the internet to a spider and its web. The spider's web starts out small and gets bigger and bigger until you have a web. The strings that make up the web of the internet are phone lines and the spider is you and your computer! Even though the web probably will never be finished, that doesn't mean you can't go exploring or have any fun. The internet was made so you could learn, explore and have fun. Although a spider only has eight eyes, the internet has millions of eyes to keep track of things such as the Olympics, the stock market, and hockey. The internet keeps getting bigger and bigger all the time with more than 2 million people joining every month. All of this growth continues to make the internet a REALLY BIG thing.

History of the Internet

    The first internet was ARPANET, it was made up of 37 computers. These computers were so large that they took up whole rooms. The reason for ARPANET was that if we went into nuclear war, and one of the lines became damaged the signals could go down another path.

    After some time they made a second internet called MILNET. The reason for MILNET was that colleges and universities had taken over ARPNET to exchange and access data between schools; MILNET on the other hand was designed for military use only.

    Finally they created a third internet which was called NSFNET. This portion of the internet was developed by the National Science Foundation. It had 5 supercomputers where scholars could get access to the latest technology in supercomputers. NSFNET eventually became so popular that it took over the functions of ARPNET.

    By 1994 U.S. government control of the internet had been replaced by commercial internet networks or IP networks. These networks were operated by big corporations such as IBM, Sprint and Alternet. Outside the U.S.A. many other IP networks have formed making the internet world wide.