History of the Internet

The next problem in the new ARPAnet was that there was no standard means of transferring files over the network. A group of researchers got together for six months and came up with a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that would specify the format of the information that would travel over the ARPAnet. It was completed in July 1972.

The International Conference on Computer Communication in Washington on October 1972, was the first demonstration of the newly founded ARPAnet, before the conference, only a few in the computer community new about the network. Larry Robert, who was in charge of the Information Processing Techniques Office at this time, asked Bob Kahn if he could organize the demonstration. Kahn, who was presently working at BBN, quickly recruited Al Vezza to aid him in the preparation for the conference. The conference ended up being a success where hundreds of people showed up.

By 1972 the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) became the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

In the spring of 1973 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn were thinking of connecting the ARPAnet with other networks. Cerf was at a conference were he started to draw an a paper what he thought could be the way to connect the networks. At that time there were two other types of networks called SATNET (satellite networking) and packet radio. They realized that they need a link or "gateway" to connect the network together in a way that it would appear the same for each network. That summer the two of them worked out a proposal to the International Network Working Group on a "Protocol for Packet Network Inter-communication". The proposal describes the new protocol which acted like an envelop that carries parts of a letter inside, were the broken up letter are called "datagrams." It didn’t mater to any network what was inside the letter, only that the envelope reaches it’s destination in one piece, if it didn’t, a new letter would be sent in its place. The new protocol, which would be essential for networks to communicate with each other, was called the Transmission-Control Protocol (TCP).

In 1977 Vint Cerf became program manager of both packet radio and SATNET and all research programs which in a whole were called ARPA Internet because of its multiple internal networks. In July 1977 Cerf and Kahn demonstrated for the first time, the three networks system using the TCP protocol to send a packet from San Francisco Bay to London then back to University of Southern California, in the end the packet traveled over 150,400 Km with out loosing a bit (single binary number).

During a discussion between Cerf, Postel and Dany Cohen at ISI in 1978, they decided to split TCP in to two separate functions of TCP and the Internet Protocol (IP). In the book "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" the authors mention how the TCP would be in charge of the breaking up the datagrams and messages then reassembling them at the destination, and the IP would be responsible for transmitting the individual datagrams. For example: the TCP protocol would split up the letter and place it into multiple envelops, while the IP protocol would be in charge of addressing the envelop and making sure it arrived at its proper destination.

The Famous @ symbol in every email address, was created in 1973 by Ray Tomlinson At BBN. Tomlinson was working on a way to send messages over the ARPAnet. He developed a software called SNDMSG and the first File Transfer Protocol called CPYNET which would send a electronic message over the ARPAnet. Tomlinson needed a way to separate the user name with the computers name in the emailso he looked at his Model 33 Teletype and chose the @ symbol as the separator. By 1977, BBN used the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for the first time on a UNIX system.

The Internet