Hobbes' Internet Timeline
RFC 2235

• Status
• IESG evaluation record
• IESG writeups
• Email expansions
• History

• Versions
• 00

Network Working Group                                           R. Zakon
Request for Comments: 2235                                         MITRE
FYI: 32                                                    November 1997
Category: Informational

                       Hobbes' Internet Timeline

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) Robert H. Zakon and The Internet Society (1997).
   All Rights Reserved.

1. Introduction

   This document presents a history of the Internet in timeline fashion,
   highlighting some of the key events and technologies which helped
   shape the Internet as we know it today.  A growth summary of the
   Internet and some associated technologies is also included.

2. Hobbes' Internet Timeline

   Excerpted from the author's copyrighted work of the same name.  The
   most current version of Hobbes' Internet Timeline is available at
   http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html

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                                   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:)

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                                   1960s

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

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RFC 2235               Hobbes' Internet Timeline           November 1997

1965
     ARPA sponsors 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:
             - Stanford Research Institute (SRI), NIC [SDS940/Genie]
             - UCSB, Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
               [IBM 360/75, OS/MVT]
             - Univ of Utah, Graphics [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

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

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                                   1970s

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

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RFC 2235               Hobbes' Internet Timeline           November 1997

1970
     ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abrahamson, Univ 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, Univ 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