Internet Origins and History

The Internet reflects a long history of technological innovation in computing and communications. Some might argue that the roots extend to the 19th century with the invention of the telegraph in 1844 or Herman Hollerith’s punched cards to [Page 543]store data in the 1880s. Certainly, the history of computing stretches at least as far back as World War II, when the first computers were deployed to assist in the creation of nuclear weapons.

Norbert Wiener played a key role in the invention of cybernetics, born out of studies of missile technology, which focused on the feedback loops between humans and electronic systems; his book, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, was published in 1948. Wide area networks emerged as early as ...