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The Internet: On its International Origins and Collaborative Vision a work In-Progress
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| bet | 3/16 | | Sana | 19.03.2017 | | Hajmi | 311.67 Kb. | | #231 |
II- Purpose
This paper is a beginning study of the origins, international in scope, of the Internet, and of the technology that made the Internet possible. This was the development of the TCP/IP protocol. The purpose of the paper is three fold. The first is to distinguish between the ARPANET and the Internet. In order to look at the origins and development of the Internet, it is important to recognize that the Internet is the solution to the multiple network problem, whereas the ARPANET and other packet switching networks were the solution to an earlier problem: the problem of communication among dissimilar computers and operating systems.(5)
Second, this paper documents the international collaboration and participation to create and develop the Internet that could span national borders and interconnect the computer communications networks of different countries. This collaboration involved the US, Norway and the UK and researchers from France and then Germany and Italy, at different stages in the process. Creating an Internet was a difficult problem to solve, not only theoretically, but practically as well. To understand the nature of the Internet, it is necessary to understand the multiple network problem and how it was solved. The difficulties were not only technical. Describing some of the difficulty he encountered, a British Internet pioneer, Peter Kirstein writes, "I was certainly ordered, in 1976, to stop work on the Internet Protocol but to concentrate only on European developments. I refused, and pursued several alternate paths for at least another decade." (Kirstein, Email, October 4, 2002.)
Third, a central aspect in the development of the Internet is the vision that inspired and provided the glue for the international collaborative research efforts. To explore the nature and origin of this vision helps to understand the research processes creating the TCP/IP protocol.
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