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Hobbes' Internet Timeline v2.5

by

Robert H'obbes' Zakon
Internet Evangelist
The MITRE Corporation


Hobbes' Internet Timeline Copyright (c)1993-6 by Robert H Zakon. Permission is granted for use of this document in whole or in part for non commercial purposes as long as appropriate credit is given to the author/maintainer. A copy of the material the Timeline appears in is appreciated. For commercial uses, please contact the author first.

The author wishes to acknowledge the Internet Society for hosting this document, and the many Net folks who have contributed suggestions and helped with the author's genealogy search.

Additional information about the Internet may be found at Hobbes' Internet World


1950s

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 (:amk:)


1960s

1962
Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
  • Packet-switching (PS) networks; no single outage point

 

1965
ARPA sponsors study study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers"
  • TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and Q-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet switches)

 

1967
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles
  • Plan presented for a packet-switching network
  • First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts

 

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies

 

1968
PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

 

1969
ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
  • First node at UCLA [Network Measurements Center - SDS SIGMA 7:SEX] and soon after at: [legend = function - system:os]
    • Stanford Research Institute (SRI) [NIC - SDS940/Genie]
    • UCSB [Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics - IBM 360/75:OS/MVT]
    • U of Utah [Graphics (hidden line removal) - DEC PDP-10:Tenex]
  • use of Information Message Processors (IMP) [Honeywell 516 mini computer with 12K of memory] developed by Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN)

 

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

 

U of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State U establish X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)


1970s

Store-and-forward networks
  • Used electronic mail technology and extended it to conferencing

 

1970
ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abrahamson, U of Hawaii (:sk2:)
  • connected to the ARPANET in 1972

 

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

 

Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a distributed network. The original program was derived from two others: an intra-machine email program (SNDMSG) and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)

 

1972
International Conference on Computer Communications with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn.

 

InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need for establishing agreed upon protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.

 

Telnet specification (RFC 318)

 

1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway)

 

Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet (:amk:)

 

Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in hotel lobby in San Francisco (:vgc:)

 

Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at U of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:)

 

File Transfer specification (RFC 454)

 

1974
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication" which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:)

 

BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:)

 

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

 

"Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)

 

Shockwave Rider written by John Brunner (:pds:)

 

1976
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an e-mail (various Net folks have e-mailed dates ranging from 1971 to 1978; 1976 was the most submitted and the only found in print)

 

UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T; Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.

 

1977
THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at U of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system and TELENET for access to server).

 

Mail specification (RFC 733)

 

Tymshare launches Tymnet

 

First demonstration of ARPANET/Packet Radio Net/SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)

 

1979
Meeting between U of Wisconsin, DARPA, NSF, and computer scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber).

 

USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under net.* hierarchy.

 

First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex

 

ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB)

 

Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI.


1980s

1981
BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork"
  • Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale (:feg:)
  • Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM systems
  • Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers

 

CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of computer scientists and U. of Delaware, Purdue U., U. of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to provide networking services (specially email) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:)

 

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

 

True Names written by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)

 

1982
DCA and ARPA establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:)
  • This leads to one of the first definitions 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 (:vgc:)

 

EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and USENET services. (:glg:)
  • original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK

 

External Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for gateways between networks.

 

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.

 

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 local network.

 

Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing ICCB

 

Berkeley releases 4.2BSD incorporating TCP/IP (:mpc:)

 

EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM.

 

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; previously SERCnet.

 

Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)

 

Neuromancer written by William Gibson

 

1985
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started

 

100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to BITNET in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)

 

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).
  • This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities.

 

NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational (:sw1:)
The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)

 

Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news performance over TCP/IP.

 

Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.

 

The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.

 

BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high speed links. Operational in 1987.

 

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. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell

 

1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"

 

# of hosts breaks 10,000

 

# of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000

 

1988
1 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet (:ph1:)

 

CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to the needs exhibited during the Morris worm incident.
        Year  Reports  Advisories   |   Year  Reports  Advisories
        ----  -------  ----------   +   ----  -------  ----------
        1988        x           1   |   1993    1,300          18 
        1989        x           7   |   1994    2,300          15
        1990       12         130   |   1995    2,412          18
        1991       23           x   |
        1992       21         800   |
 

 

DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defines the set of protocols to be supported by Government purchased products (:gck:)

 

Los Nettos network created with no federal funding, instead supported by regional members (founding: Caltech, TIS, UCLA, USC, ISI).

 

NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)

 

CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded by Susan Estrada.

 

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen (:zby:)

 

First Canadian regionals join NSFNET: ONet via Cornell, RISQ via Princeton, BCnet via U of Washington (:ec1:)

 

FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of e-mail and news (:tp1:)

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

 

1989
# of hosts breaks 100,000

 

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. (:glg:)

 

First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet: MCI Mail through the Corporation for the National Research Initiative (CNRI), and Compuserve through Ohio State U (:jg1,ph1:)

 

Corporation for Research and Education Networking (CREN) is formed by the merge of CSNET into BITNET

 

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB

 

AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and CSIRO; introduced into service the following year (:gmc:)

 

Cuckoo's Egg written by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of a German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, UK


1990s

1990
ARPANET ceases to exist

 

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is founded by Mitch Kapor

 

Archie released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan at McGill

 

Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (U of Saskatchewan)

 

The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access

 

ISO Development Environment (ISODE) developed to provide an approach for OSI migration for the DoD. ISODE software allows OSI application to operate over TCP/IP (:gck:)

 

CA*net formed by 10 regional networks as national Canadian backbone with direct connection to NSFNET (:ec1:)

 

The first remotely operated machine to be hooked up to the Internet, the Internet Toaster, (controlled via SNMP) makes its debut at Interop. [picture]

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Greece, India, Ireland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland

 

1991
Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed by General Atomics (CERFnet), Performance Systems International, Inc. (PSInet), and UUNET Technologies, Inc. (AlterNet), after NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the Net (:glg:)

 

Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), invented by Brewster Kahle, released by Thinking Machines Corporation

 

Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the U of Minn

 

World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer (:pb1:)

 

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman (:ad1:)

 

US High Performance Computing Act (Gore 1) establishes the National Research and Education Network (NREN)

 

NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)

 

NSFNET traffic passes 1 trillion bytes/month and 10 billion packets/month

 

Start of JANET IP Service (JIPS) which signalled the changeover from Coloured Book software to TCP/IP within the UK academic network. IP was initially 'tunnelled' within X.25. (:gst:)

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Croatia, Czech Repulic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Tunisia

 

1992
Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered

 

# of hosts breaks 1,000,000

 

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

 

IAB reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board and becomes part of the Internet Society

 

Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by UofNevada

 

World Bank comes on-line

 

Internet Hunt started by Rick Gates

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Cameroon, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia, Kuwait, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Venezuela

 

1993
InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: (:sc1:)
  • directory and database services (AT&T;)
  • registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)
  • information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)

 

US White House comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov/):
  • President Bill Clinton: president@whitehouse.gov
  • Vice-President Al Gore: vice-president@whitehouse.gov
  • First Lady Hillary Clinton: root@whitehouse.gov (-:rhz:-)

 

Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4), joined by Spiders, Wanderers, Crawlers, and Snakes ...

 

Internet Talk Radio begins broadcasting (:sk2:)

 

United Nations (UN) come on-line (:vgc:)

 

US National Information Infrastructure Act

 

Businesses and media really take notice of the Internet

 

Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate of service traffic. Gopher's growth is 997%.

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, Ghana, Guam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Peru, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, UAE, Virgin Islands

 

1994
ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary

 

Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet (Lexington and Cambridge, Mass., USA)

 

US Senate and House provide information servers

 

Shopping malls arrive on the Internet

 

First cyberstation, RT-FM, broadcasts from Interop in Las Vegas

 

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that GOSIP should incorporate TCP/IP and drop the "OSI-only" requirement (:gck:)

 

Arizona law firm of Canter & Siegel "spams" the Internet with email advertising green card lottery services; Net citizens flame back

 

NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month

 

Yes, it's true - you can now order pizza from the Hut online

 

WWW edges out telnet to become 2nd most popular service on the Net (behind ftp-data) based on % of packets and bytes traffic distribution on NSFNET

 

Japanese Prime Minister on-line (http://www.kantei.go.jp/)

 

UK's HM Treasury on-line (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/)

 

New Zealand's Info Tech Prime Minister on-line (http://www.govt.nz/)

 

First Virtual, the first cyberbank, open up for business

 

Radio stations start rockin' (rebroadcasting) round the clock on the Net: WXYC at UofNC, WJHK at UofKS-Lawrence, KUGS at Western WA U.

 

Trans-European Research and Education Network Association (TERENA) is formed by the merge of RARE and EARN, with representatives from 38 countries as well as CERN and ECMWF. TERERNA's aim is to "promote and participate in the development of a high quality international information and telecommunications infrastructure for the benefit of research and education"

 

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria, Armenia, Bermuda, Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, French Polynesia, Jamaica, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macau, Morocco, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Uruguay, Uzbekistan

 

1995
NSFNET reverts back to a research network. Main US backbone traffic now routed through interconnected network providers

 

Hong Kong police disconnect all but 1 of the colony's Internet providers in search of a hacker. 10,000 people are left without Net access. (:api:)

 

RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time

 

Radio HK, the first 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts broadcasting

 

WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest traffic on NSFNet based on packet count, and in April based on byte count

 

Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, American Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access

 

A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)

 

Thousands in Minneapolis-St. Paul (USA) lose Net access after transients start a bonfire under a bridge at the U of Minn. causing fiber-optic cables to melt (30 July)

 

Registration of domain names is no longer free. Beginning 14 September, a $50 annual fee has been imposed, which up until now was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for .edu registration, and on an interim basis for .gov

 

The Vatican comes on-line (http://www.vatican.va/)

 

The Canadian Government comes on-line (http://canada.gc.ca/)

 

The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) aprehend three individuals who were illegally manufacturing and selling cell phone cloning equipment and electronic devices

 

Operation Home Front connects, for the first time, soldiers in the field with their families back home via the Internet.

 

Richard White becomes the first person to be declared a munition, under the USA's arms export control laws, because of an RSA file security encryption program emblazoned on his arm (:wired496:)

 

Technologies of the Year: WWW, Search engines
Emerging Technologies: Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools

 

1996
The Internet 1996 World Exposition - the first World's Fair to take place on the Internet

 

Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)

 

The controversial US Communications Decency Act becomes law in the US in order to prohibit distribution of indecent materials over the Net. A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an injunction against its enforcement.

 

9,272 organizations find themselves unlisted after the InterNIC drops their name service as a result of not having paid their domain name fee

 

American OnLine (AOL) suffers a 19 hour outage, bringing into question whether ISP's will be able to handle the growing number of users

 

Restrictions on Internet use around the world:
  • China: requires users and ISPs to register with the police
  • Germany: cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on Compuserve
  • Saudi Arabia: confines Internet access to universities and hospitals
  • Singapore: requires political and religious content providers to register with the state
  • New Zealand: classifies computer disks as "publications" that can be censored and seized
  • source: Human Rights Watch

 

Country domains registered: Qatar (QA), Vientiane (LA), Djibouti (DJ), Niger (NE), Central African Republic (CF), Mauretania (MF), Oman (OM), Norfolk Island (NF), Tuvalu (TV), French Polynesia (PF), Syria (SY), Aruba (AW), Cambodia (KH)

 

Technologies of the Year: Search engines, JAVA, Internet Phone
Emerging Technologies: Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools, Internet appliance


Growth

Internet growth:

   Date       Hosts        |      Date       Hosts     Networks    Domains
   -----    ---------      +      -----    ---------   --------    -------
    1969            4      |      07/89      130,000        650      3,900
   04/71           23      |      10/89      159,000        837
   06/74           62      |      10/90      313,000      2,063      9,300
   03/77          111      |      01/91      376,000      2,338
   08/81          213      |      07/91      535,000      3,086     16,000
   05/82          235      |      10/91      617,000      3,556     18,000
   08/83          562      |      01/92      727,000      4,526
   10/84        1,024      |      04/92      890,000      5,291     20,000
   10/85        1,961      |      07/92      992,000      6,569     16,300
   02/86        2,308      |      10/92    1,136,000      7,505     18,100
   11/86        5,089      |      01/93    1,313,000      8,258     21,000
   12/87       28,174      |      04/93    1,486,000      9,722     22,000
   07/88       33,000      |      07/93    1,776,000     13,767     26,000
   10/88       56,000      |      10/93    2,056,000     16,533     28,000
   01/89       80,000      |      01/94    2,217,000     20,539     30,000
                           |      07/94    3,212,000     25,210     46,000
                           |      10/94    3,864,000     37,022     56,000
                           |      01/95    4,852,000     39,410     71,000
                           |      07/95    6,642,000     61,538    120,000
                           |      01/96    9,472,000     93,671    240,000
                           |      07/96   12,881,000    134,365    488,000
 

Figure: Internet hosts

Figure: Internet networks and domains

Worldwide networks growth: (I)nternet (B)ITNET (U)UCP (F)IDONET (O)SI

           ____# Countries____                         ____# Countries____
   Date     I   B   U   F   O                  Date     I   B   U   F   O
   -----   --- --- --- --- ---                 -----   --- --- --- --- ---
   09/91    31  47  79  49                     08/93    59  51 117  84  31
   12/91    33  46  78  53                     02/94    62  51 125  88  31
   02/92    38  46  92  63                     07/94    75  52 129  89  31
   04/92    40  47  90  66  25                 11/94    81  51 133  95  --
   08/92    49  46  89  67  26                 02/95    86  48 141  98  --
   01/93    50  50 101  72  31                 06/95    96  47 144  99  --
   04/93    56  51 107  79  31                 06/96   134  -- 146 108  --
 

Figure: Worldwide networks growth

WWW growth:

   Date     Sites     |   Date     Sites 
   -----  ----------  +   -----  ----------
   06/93         130  |   06/95      23,500
   12/93         623  |   01/96     100,000
   06/94       2,738  |   06/96     230,000
   12/94      10,022  |
  
 

USENET growth:

   Date  Sites  ~MB  ~Posts  Groups  |  Date   Sites   ~MB  ~Posts  Groups
   ----  -----  ---  ------  ------  +  ----  -------  ---  ------  ------
   1979      3            2       3  |  1986     2200  2.0     946     241
   1980     15           10          |  1987     5200  2.1     957     259
   1981    150  0.05     20          |  1988     7800  4.4    1933     381
   1982    400           35          |  HELP: Where is data archived for
   1983    600          120          |        this period 1989-1991?
   1984    900          225          |  1992   63,000   42  17,556
   1985   1300  1.0     375          |  1993   69,000   50  19,362
                                     |  1994  190,000  190  72,755
 
      ~ approximate: MB - megabytes per day, Posts - articles per day
 

Additional growth charts (square root, logarithmic) available from http://www.is-bremen.de/~mhi/inetgrow.htm.


Hobbes' Internet Timeline FAQ

1. Why did you compile Hobbes' Internet Timeline?
For use in the Internet courses I taught: Introduction to the Internet, Internet Tools Administration, and Net Surfing 101.

 

2. How do I get Hobbes' Internet Timeline?
The Timeline is archived at: http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html. If you prefer a copy via e-mail, send a blank message to timeline@hobbes.mitre.org. For comments/corrections please use hobbes@hobbes.mitre.org.

 

3. What do you do at MITRE?
I design the soccer shoe of the future (wrong MITRE :-) Actually, I wear the following hats: Net Evangelist, HCI Engineer, Systems Integrator, Information Engineer, NIDR Administrator, Lead Scientist, Instructor, He with the Most Toys

 

4. Why don't you list the # of Internet users?
This is too controversial, and relatively inaccurate, an issue which the author does not want to get flamed or spammed for. His guess would be between 1 (himself) and 5 billion (but then again, one never knows if you're a dog on the Net).

 

5. Is your license plate really NET SURF?
Yes, and there is a frame around it with INTERNET at the top, and my e-mail address at the bottom. (My wife is too embarrassed to drive it:) Oh, and the bumper sticker says "I'd Rather Be Net Surfing"

 

6. Can I re-print the Timeline or use parts of it for ... ?
Drop me an e-mail. The answer is most likely (though don't assume) 'yes' for non-profit use, and 'maybe' for for-profit; but to be sure you are not going to break any copyright laws, drop me an e-mail and wait for a reply.

 

[ I realize the question below is outdated, but I leave it as proof of my prediction powers :-]
7. Who do you think is going to win the '94 World Cup?
Brasil, of course! (I was born in Rio de Janeiro ...)

 

8. Peddie (Ala Viva!), CWRU (North Side), Amici Usque Ad Aras (OH Epsilon)
E-mail me if you know


Sources

Hobbes' Internet Timeline was compiled from a number of sources, with some
of the stand-outs being:
 
Cerf, Vinton (as told to Bernard Aboba). "How the Internet Came to Be."
This article appears in "The Online User's Encyclopedia," by Bernard Aboba.
Addison-Wesley, 1993.
 
Hardy, Henry. "The History of the Net."  Master's Thesis, School of
Communications, Grand Valley State University.
http://www.ocean.ic.net/ftp/doc/nethist.html
 
Hardy, Ian.  "The Evolution of ARPANET email." History Thesis, UC Berkeley.
http://server.berkeley.edu/virtual-berkeley/email_history
 
Hauben, Ronda and Michael. "The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net."
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
 
Kulikowski, Stan II. "A Timeline of Network History." (author's email below)
 
Quarterman, John. "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems
Worldwide."  Bedford, MA: Digital Press. 1990
 
"ARPANET, the Defense Data Network, and Internet".  Encyclopedia of 
Communications, Volume 1.  Editors: Fritz Froehlich, Allen Kent.  
New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc. 1991
 
Internet growth summary compiled from:
  - zone program reports maintained by Mark Lottor at:
             ftp://ftp.nw.com/pub/zone/
  - connectivity table maintained by Larry Landweber at:
             ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/connectivity_table/
 
WWW growth summary is available from:
  - web growth summary page by Matthew Gray of MIT:
             http://www.mit.edu/people/mkgray/net/web-growth-summary.html
 
USENET growth summary compiled from Quarterman and Hauben sources above,
and news.lists postings.  Lots of historical USENET postings also provided 
by Tom Fitzgerald (fitz@wang.com). 
 
Many of the URLs provided by Arnaud Dufour (arnaud.dufour@hec.unil.ch)
 
 
---
Contributors to Hobbes' Internet Timeline have their initials next to the
contributed items in the form (:zzz:) and are:
 
ad1 - Arnaud Dufour (arnaud.dufour@hec.unil.ch)
amk - Alex McKenzie (mckenzie@bbn.com)
ec1 - Eric Carroll (eric@enfm.utcc.utoronto.ca)
esr - Eric S. Raymond (esr@locke.ccil.org)
feg - Farrell E. Gerbode (farrell@is.rice.edu)
gck - Gary C. Kessler (kumquat@hill.com)
glg - Gail L. Grant (grant@openmarket.com)
gmc - Grant McCall (g.mccall@unsw.edu.au)
gst - Graham Thomas (G.S.Thomas@uel.ac.uk)
irh - Ian R Hardy (hardy@uclink2.berkeley.edu)
jg1 - Jim Gaynor (gaynor@agvax.ag.ohio.state.edu)
kf1 - Ken Fockler (fockler@hq.canet.ca)
lhl - Larry H. Landweber (lhl@cs.wisc.edu)
mpc - Mellisa P. Chase (pc@mitre.org)
pb1 - Paul Burchard (burchard@cs.princeton.edu)
pds - Peter da Silva (peter@baileynm.com)
ph1 - Peter Hoffman (hoffman@ece.nps.navy.mil)
rab - Roger A. Bielefeld (rab@hal.cwru.edu)
sc1 - Susan Calcari (susanc@is.internic.net)
sk2 - Stan Kulikowski (stankuli@uwf.bitnet) - see sources section
sw1 - Stephen Wolff (swolff@cisco.com)
tp1 - Tim Pozar (pozar@kumr.lns.com)
vgc - Vinton Cerf (vcerf@isoc.org) - see sources section
zby - Zenel Batagelj (zenel.batagelj@uni-lj.si)
 

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) ;-) Help the Author (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-:   The author is on an eternal genealogical search. If you know of someone whose last name is Zakon or could spare 1 minute to check your local phone book, please e-mail any info (i.e., name, phone, address, city) to rhz@po.cwru.edu; your help is greatly appreciated.   Help update: Thanks to Net folks, 39 new Zakon's have been found so far, making the current total around 175! (this after a decade of research)  
  Archive-name: Hobbes' Internet Timeline v2.5 Archive-location: http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html Last-updated: 15 August 1996 Maintainer: Robert H'obbes' Zakon, zakon@info.isoc.org Description: An Internet timeline highlighting some of the key events and technologies which helped shape the Internet as we know it today.  



Formation Internet Contacts
Auteur Pascal Vuylsteker / Fabrice Gaillard Des questions au sujet du cours ... Pascal Vuylsteker <pvk@vuylsteker.net>
URL http://www.vuylsteker.net/Formation/hobbe.html Page modifiée le: 11/10/2000
Copyright © 1995-2001 Pascal Vuylsteker