Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: Here ah the Internet, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, the cause
Speaker 1: of and solution to all our problems, Believe it or not,
Speaker 1: the bastion of knowledge and monger of misinformation from which
Speaker 1: you're listening to this very podcast all started with a
Speaker 1: single satellite. It was nineteen fifty seven when the then
Speaker 1: Soviet Union launched Sputneck, which became the first human made
Speaker 1: object to orbit the Earth. Americans were shocked by the news.
Speaker 1: The Cold War was at its peak, and the United
Speaker 1: States and the Soviet Union considered each other enemies, and
Speaker 1: if the Soviet Union could launch satellite into space, it
Speaker 1: could probably launch a missile to hit North America. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the
Speaker 1: Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, as a direct response
Speaker 1: to Sputnik's launch. ARPA's purpose was to give the United
Speaker 1: States a technological edge over other countries and perhaps specifically,
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. One important part of ARPA's mission was
Speaker 1: computer science. In the nineteen fifties, computers were enormous devices
Speaker 1: that filled entire rooms. They had a fraction of the
Speaker 1: power and processing ability you can find in the cell
Speaker 1: phone in your pocket. Many computers could only read magnetic
Speaker 1: tape or punch cards, and there was no way to
Speaker 1: network computers together. If you wanted to port information from
Speaker 1: one machine to another, you had to carry boxes of
Speaker 1: those punch cards or reels of that magnetic tape, and
Speaker 1: you couldn't transfer information from one type of computer to another.
Speaker 1: They all had to be similar machines running the same
Speaker 1: operating system. ARPA aimed to change that. There had been
Speaker 1: theories written about how computers could change the world through
Speaker 1: their ability to process data, and about how they could
Speaker 1: be linked together to increase that processing power, but those
Speaker 1: theories had never been put into practice. So ARPET enlisted
Speaker 1: the help of a company called Bolt, Barneck and Newman
Speaker 1: or BBN to create a computer network, and the network
Speaker 1: had to connect four computers running at research facilities around
Speaker 1: California on four different operating systems. They called the Network,
Speaker 1: which they established in nineteen sixty nine ARPINET. Without Arpinet,
Speaker 1: the Internet wouldn't look or behave the way it does today.
Speaker 1: It might not even exist. Arpinet's designers had to come
Speaker 1: up with a common set of rules that the network
Speaker 1: would follow in order for the computers to communicate with
Speaker 1: each other without crashing the whole system. These rules are
Speaker 1: called protocols. Although other groups were working on ways to
Speaker 1: network computers together, the engineers behind arpinet established some of
Speaker 1: the protocols still used on the Internet today, TCPIP and FTP. Moreover,
Speaker 1: without the motivation and funding from ARPA, it may have
Speaker 1: taken many more years before anyone tried to find ways
Speaker 1: to join regional networks together into a larger system, But
Speaker 1: that got underway almost immediately after Arpinet came online and
Speaker 1: began growing to include other computers around the US. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, engineers began to look at ways to
Speaker 1: connect Arpinet to a new ARPA project, packet radio networks
Speaker 1: or pr nets. These packet radio networks were early mobile networks.
Speaker 1: The connected computers, some housed in large operable vans, via
Speaker 1: radio transmitters and receivers, so instead of sending data across
Speaker 1: phone lines, these computers used radio waves. It took three years,
Speaker 1: but in nineteen seventy six engineers successfully connected the two networks.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen seventy seven technicians joinin ArbNet and pr
Speaker 1: net to an internationally designed computer network called the satellite
Speaker 1: network or satnet, which had also had its start in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. They called this connection between multiple networks
Speaker 1: inter networking, or the Internet for short. Other early computer
Speaker 1: networks soon joined. In nineteen ninety, a computer scientist from
Speaker 1: England named Tim berners Lee developed a system designed to
Speaker 1: simplify navigation on the Internet. In time, the system became
Speaker 1: known as the Worldwide Web. It didn't take long for
Speaker 1: some people to mistake the Internet and the Web as
Speaker 1: the same thing, but the Internet is a global interconnection
Speaker 1: of computer networks. The Worldwide Web is a way to
Speaker 1: navigate this massive network. It's like comparing an ocean to
Speaker 1: a ship. There are other ships in the ocean of
Speaker 1: the Internet, but the Worldwide Web is the most popular.
Speaker 1: Most early Internet users were government and military employees, graduate students,
Speaker 1: and computer scientists, but using the world Wide Web, the
Speaker 1: Internet became much more accessible. Colleges and universities began to
Speaker 1: connect to the Internet, then hobbyists and members of the
Speaker 1: public and businesses soon followed. By nineteen ninety four, internet
Speaker 1: commerce had become a reality, with pizza Hut being one
Speaker 1: of the first, if not the first online merchants. Pizza
Speaker 1: Net was a program piloted by a franchise in Santa Cruz, California.
Speaker 1: You could go online to pizza dot net, fill out
Speaker 1: a form with your delivery info and order, and it
Speaker 1: would be delivered. It worked by submitting the data from
Speaker 1: the forum to a server in Pizza Hut's home base
Speaker 1: in Wichita, which then sent the order to a computer
Speaker 1: at the restaurant in Santa Cruz, where an employee would
Speaker 1: receive it and call you to confirm the order. Several
Speaker 1: organizations and committees formed to help shape the Internet into
Speaker 1: to what it is today. They included the Internet Activities Board,
Speaker 1: and the US Federal Research Internet Coordinating Committee and Federal
Speaker 1: Networking Council, among others. These groups work to establish the
Speaker 1: rules and standards that make it possible for different computer
Speaker 1: networks to work together, and today the Internet is more
Speaker 1: complex than ever. It connects computers, satellites, mobile devices, and
Speaker 1: other gadgets together in a massive network millions of times
Speaker 1: more intricate than the original Apronet and the thing we
Speaker 1: owe it all to a nebulously threatening, silvery beeping ball
Speaker 1: that once orbited miles above Earth's surface. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article how did the Internet Start? On
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com, written by Jonathan Strickland. Brainstuff is
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio in partnership with housetuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.