History Darpa - Arpanet Internet Timeline

 

 

Going through my old CD backup and found this I wrote in 3/1995 

History Darpa - Arpanet

Internet Timeline

 

 

1957   USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite.  In response,

       US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the

       Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and

       technology applicable to the military

 

1962   Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"

         - Packet-switching networks; no single outage point

 

1966   the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of ARPA

       appointed Larry Roberts to develop the packet-switching wide-area

       computer network;

 

1967    ACM Symposium on Operating Principles

        - Plan presented for a packet-switching network

 

1968    Network presentation to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

 

1969    ARPANET commissioned by DOD for research into networking

        - use of Information Message Processors (IMP) [Honeywell mini computer

          with 12K of memory] developed by Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN)

          a four-node initial configuration of the ARPANET was in place. 50Kbps

          UCLA, SRI, UCSB, U of Utah,

 

        First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker

 

1970    ALOHAnet packet radio network developed by Norman Abrahamson, U of

         Hawaii

 

        ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP).

 

1971    15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, U of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC,

        Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames

 

1972    International Conference on Computer Communications with

        demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines organized by Bob Kahn.

 

        InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need

        for establishing agreed upon protocols.  Chairman: Vinton Cerf.

 

        Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents E-Mail program to send messages across a

        distributed network.

 

1973    First international connections to the ARPANET: England and Norway

 

        Bob Metcalfe's (founder of 3COM) PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet

 

1974    Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network

        Internetworking" which specified in detail the design of a

        Transmission Control Program (TCP).

 

        BBN opens Telenet, commercial version of ARPANET

         (used mostly to connect to Compuserve)

 

1975    Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)

 

        "Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released tested

 

1976    UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed

        with UNIX one year later.

 

1977    THEORYNET created at U of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to

        over 100 researchers in computer science (using uucp).

 

        TCP over world wide satellite links and packet radio.

 

1978    Final draft of TCP released

 

1979    Meeting between U of Wisconsin, DARPA, NSF, and computer scientists

        from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department

        research computer network.

 

        USENET established using uucp between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott

        and Steve Bellovin. Providing News and E-Mail services

 

1980    Berkeley releases 4.0 BSD UNIX

 

1981    BITNET, the "Because Its Time NETwork"

        - Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York.

        - Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute

          information.

        - Unlike USENET, where client s/w is needed, electronic mail is the

          only tool necessary.

 

        CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by UCAR and BBN through seed

        money granted by NSF to provide networking services (specially

        E-Mail) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET.  CSNET

        later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network.

 

        Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by French Telecom.

 

1982    INWG establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet

        Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for

        ARPANET.

        - This leads to one of the first definition of an "internet"

          as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP,

          and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.

        - DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD

 

        EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide E-Mail and

        USENET services.

 

1983    Name server developed at U of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users

        to know the exact path to other systems.

 

        Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)

 

        CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place

 

        ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated

        with the Defense Data Network created the previous year.

 

        Berkeley releases 4.2 BSD UNIX incorporating TCP/IP standard.

 

        Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX which

        includes IP networking software.

 

        Need switches from having a single, large time sharing computer

        connected to Internet per site, to connection of an entire LAN.

 

        EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established.  Very

        similar to the way BITNET works.

 

        FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings.

 

1984    Domain Name Server (DNS) introduced.

 

        # of hosts breaks 1,000

 

        JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP.

 

 

        JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the

        Coloured Book protocols.

1986    NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)

        - NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing

          power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC,

          Theory Center@Cornell).

        ARPANET bureaucracy keeps it from being used to interconnect

          centers and NSFNET comes into being with the aid of NASA and DOE.

        - This allows an explosion of connections, especially from

          universities.

 

        Cleveland Freenet (start of NPTN) comes on-line

 

        Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news

        performance over TCP/IP.

 

        Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allowing

        non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.

 

1987    NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with

        Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI involvement was through an agreement

        with Merit).  Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.

 

        UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and

        Usenet access.

 

        1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"

 

        # of hosts breaks 10,000

 

        # of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000

 

1988    Robert Morris’s Internet worm burrows through the Net breaking into and

        crashing SUN and VAX UNIX machines world wide.

 

1989    ARPANET formally expired - many rumors that Internet will die.

 

        # of hosts breaks 100,000

 

        NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)

 

        RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) formed (by European service providers) to

        ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to

        allow the operation of the pan-European IP Network

 

        First relay between a commercial electronic mail carrier (Compurserve)

        and the Internet through Ohio State University

 

        World-Wide Web network developed by Tim Berners-LEE at CERN in Europe.

 

1990

 

        Second relay between a commercial electronic mail carrier (MCI Mail)

        and the Internet through the Corporation for the National Research

        Initiative (CNRI)

 

        EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation is founded by Mitch Kapor

 

        Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (U of Saskatchewan)

 

1991    Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed by General

        Atomics (CERFnet), Performance Systems International, Inc. (PSInet),

        and UUNET Technologies, Inc. (AlterNet)

 

        WAIS released by Thinking Machines Corporation

 

        Gopher released by University of Minnesota

 

        US High Performance Computing Act (Gore 1) establishes the National

        Research and Education Network (NREN)

 

1992    Internet Society is chartered

 

        World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN

 

        # of hosts breaks 1,000,000

 

        NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)

 

        First MBONE audio multicast (March) and video multicast (November)

 

1993    InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services

          - directory and database services (AT&T)

          - registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)

          - information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)

 

        US White House comes on-line:

          - President Bill Clinton: president@whitehouse.gov

          - Vice-President Al Gore: vice-president@whitehouse.gov

 

        Internet Talk Radio begins broadcasting

 

        United Nations and World Bank come on-line

 

        US National Information Infrastructure Act

 

        Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634%

        annual growth rate of service traffic.  Gopher's growth is 997%.

 

1994    Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet

 

        US Senate and House provide information servers

 

        Mass marketing finds its way to the Internet with mass e-mailings

 

        Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4),

        joined by Spiders, Wanderers, Crawlers, and Snakes ...