Computer Networks

Development of Computer Networks

Most of the research and implementation involved in computer networking took place in the United States in the 1960s, although researchers in Great Britain also contributed. In the United States, computer-to-computer networking was largely spurred by military and government spending. During the Cold War, and particularly after the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, the U.S. government radically increased its spending on basic scientific research. The goals of this research were not predetermined; that is, there was no specific mandate to create a computer network. Rather, the U.S. government sought to increase its scientific power in response to Soviet successes in science and technology. Thus, researchers could receive money with very few strings attached, just so long as they were conducting research into cutting-edge technologies.

Computer networks did not appear fully formed in the 1960s. In fact, there is no clear beginning to computer networking; rather, it grew out of a complex technological environment and from many prior communications and technological practices, the most important of these being telegraphy and telephony, radar networks, computer time sharing, and packet switching.

Over its long history, telegraphy developed sophisticated systems of message management and delivery. The Morse code used in telegraphy inspired Claude E. Shannon's 1945 theory of information, a vital ingredient in computer science. Telegraphy, and later telephony, enabled people to overcome geographical limitations to communication by radically reducing the time it took to send information over long distances. The national telephone network in the United States, owned by the monopoly American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), was a key infrastructure upon which computer networks were to be built. Once digital computers were invented, they were soon put to use in managing traffic on telegraph and telephone networks; in this way, computers were closely linked to telecommunications. Telephone companies also developed the modem, which was later used for computer-to-computer connections. Thus, these technologies are direct forebears to computer networking.

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