Thursday, September 03, 2009

The Internet is 40 years old today!

"This was the day that the infant Internet took its first breath of life" Leonard Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA - one of the men who enabled two computers to exchange data over a network for the very first time. "It was the first time...this baby came out and looked around and started talking to the world" (from Computer World).


From Discover magazine:

"On September 2, 1969, computer scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, hooked up two computers via a 15-foot cable, allowing them to exchange data. It marked a milestone in the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, or ARPANET, which later gave rise to the Internet t wasn’t until October 29 of the same year that the first message was sent between computer nodes; for that reason, some say the Internet was really born at the end of October. In any case, the Internet has come a long way since 1969: The first message was supposed to be “login” but [computer scientist Leonard] Kleinrock was only able to type “lo” before the system crashed [ABC News]."


From the Telegraph:

"Forty years ago today computer was joined with computer in a union that would not be limited to just a few minutes of slow, buggy data transfer, it would transcend the boundaries oftechy types and become part of everyday life, closely bound into our economic and social structures. Here we celebrate the ten cleverest youngish men who made it happen, and in so doing designed the mechanics behind the modern world."

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