Internet Time-Line Project: Main page; Using the Time-line; Time-line Part 2 (1970 onwards)

Internet Time-Line Part 1

1969 and before

YEAR	DESCRIPTION	Related Threads
1642 Pascal	At age 19, Blaise Pascal (France) constructs the first mechanical calculator and offers it for sale. The machine is capable of adding and subtracting. 1642:1	1647: Leibniz

1674 Leibniz's machine	Gottfried Leibniz (Germany) designs a machine for multiplication and division. 1674:1	1642: Pascal 1834: Babbage

1834 Difference engine	Charles Babbage, inventor of machine computing, designs a mechanical computer, or "difference engine", assisted by Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace. The machine could perform calculations and print the results, but neither this machine nor his later "analytical engine" are constructed in his lifetime, due to practical and financial difficulties ("though construction of one began in London in the 1990s [sic]"). 1834:1 The difference engine can handle variables in equations, and give thousands of results after the first value is set. 1834:2	1674: Leibniz 1849: Boole

1835 Morse	Samuel Morse invents Morse code. 1835:1	1837: Telegraph

1837 Telegraph	William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patent the electric telegraph, which is used between two railway stations in London. 1837:1	1851: Underwater cable 1876: Telephone

1849 Boolean algebra	George Boole (UK) invents Boolean algebra. 1849:1 Boole's Mathematical Analysis of Logic, published in 1847, was based on the 13th century logic diagrams of Ramon Lull. John Venn would later develop the Venn diagram by extension. 1849:2 Boolean algebra is the foundation of binary logic essential to computing.	1834: Babbage 1855: Schentz

1851 Underwater cable	The English Channel gets the first underwater cable. 1851:1	1837: Telegraph 1876: Telephone

1855 Schentz's calculating engine	G. Schentz (Sweden) constructs a calculating engine and exhibits it at the Paris Exhibition. 1855:1	1849: Boole 1889: Hollerith

1876 Bell's telephone	Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. The first telephone has only one transducer for listening and speaking, before Edison adds another one. 1876:1	1837: Telegraph 1918: Wire-tap law 1927: Transatlantic phone link

1889 Hollerith's tabulating machine	Herman Hollerith invents a "tabulating machine using punchcards for computation". The machine is "an important precursor of the electronic computer", and was used to tabulate results of the US census. 1889:1	1889: Hollerith 1896: IBM

1896	Herman Hollerith founds a company that would later become IBM. 1896:1	1855: Schentz 1911: IBM

1906 Thermionic valve	Following J.J. Thompson's 1897 discovery of the Edison effect (flow of electrons from a filament to a positively charged electrode), the American engineer Lee de Forest builds the first thermionic triode valve. The device can compare two electronic inputs and produce a logical output. This is the first applications of Boolean algebra. 1906:1 The valve would later be replaced by the transistor.	1849: Boole 1947: Transistor 1926: Television

1911 IBM	Tabulating Machine Company of the US becomes International Business Machines. 1911:1	1896: Hollerith 1937: Turing 1953: IBM builds computers

1918 Wire-tap law	The US government introduces the first wire-tap law. Law enforcement agencies use it for counter-espionage, but soon it is used to fight crime. Tapped conversations can be admitted as evidence. 1918:1	1835: Morse 1928: 4th Amendment

1926 Television	John Logie Baird introduces "the first usable television with a picture of 30 vertical lines, its image changing 12.5 times per second". The cathode ray tube is a development of the thermionic valve. 1926:1	1906: Thermionic valve

1927 Trans- atlantic phone links	London and New York get the first transatlantic phone link. 1927:1	1876: Telephone 1960: Satellite phone

1928	The US government defends the use of wire-tapping in Olmstead vs. US, arguing that the Fourth Amendment only protects material things; non-material communications can thus be legally tapped by the government. 1928:1	1918: Wire-tap law 1934: FCA

1933 FDR	Franklin D. Roosevelt is US President from 1933-45. During World War II, he "played an important part in the coordination of the Allied war effort". He also co-authored the Atlantic Charter with Churchill in 1941. 1933:1	1934: Roosevelt & wire-tapping 1945: Truman

1934 FCA	US Congress enacts the Federal Communications Act prohibiting the interception of wire and radio transmissions without the sender's knowledge. The Supreme Court supports the statute and rules that wire-tapped information cannot be admitted as evidence. The Justice Department resists the decision. When war threatens, Roosevelt permits wire-tapping for "national security purposes". After the war, the courts make a gradual swing back to protection of privacy. 1934:1	1928: 4th Amendment 1943: Turing's Colossus 1957: 4th Amendment

1937 Turing's theoretical computer	Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine, "a key step to the development of the first computer". 1937:1	1911: IBM 1943: Mark I

1943 (WWII: 1939-45) Turing's Colossus	Turing conceives of the code-breaking machine Colossus. 1943:1 Presumably, this is in "England's Government Code and Cypher School". 1943:2	1934: FCA 1943: Hitler's Enigma
Mark I	Supported by the US Navy, Howard Aiken from Harvard builds the Mark I, "a 51-foot-long, 8-foot-high switchboard capable of mathematic calculations" without human intervention. 1943:3 The most advanced computer is the ASCC Mark 1, "developed at Harvard University with backing from IBM". It is 51 feet long, weighs 5 tons and consists of 750,000 parts. IBM chairman Thomas Watson is quoted as saying: "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers." 1943:4	1937: Turing 1947: Pilot ACE 1948: Another 'first'

1943-1945 Hitler's Enigma	Hitler uses his cutting-edge hardware, the Enigma (based on a discovery by the Polish), for encryption. The Germans are "adept at jumbling up their messages with complicated algorithms that can only be cracked by computers". 1943:4	1943: Turing's Colossus 1952: NSA

1945 ENIAC	P. Eckert and J. Maunchly design the US Army's ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator) at the University of Pennsylvania. 1945:1	1943: Turing's Colossus
Truman	Harry Truman assumes US Presidency upon Roosevelt's death. He holds office from 1945-53. He immediately uses the atomic bomb against Japan to end World War II. His Marshall Plan gives aid to "war-shattered European countries" and contributes to the establishment of NATO. He will later involve America in the Korean War. 1945:2	1933: FDR 1953: Eisenhower

1947 Pilot ACE	Donald Watts Davies joins a team led by Alan Turing at the National Physical Laboratory to build the fastest digital computer in England at the time, the Pilot ACE. 1947:1	1943: Mark I
Transistor	William Shockley and others at Bell Labs invent the transistor, which will eventually replace the thermionic valve. 1947:2	1906: Thermionic valve 1949: Printed circuit
Truman Doctrine	President Truman expresses the Truman Doctrine, the principle extending US aid to nations under Soviet or Communist threat. It is taken by Communists as an open declaration of the Cold War. 1947:3	1943: Hitler 1952: NSA

1948	According to the OED, the first computer, the Manchester Mark I, is installed at Manchester University, UK. 1948:1	1943: Mark I

1949-50 Printed circuits	Printed electronic circuits are developed. 1949:1 Transistors, resistors, capacitors and other electronic components can be linked closely together on a printed circuit board, rather than being wired together separately.	1947: Transistor 1958: Integrated circuit

Early 1950s Whirlwind SAGE	At MIT's Lincoln Lab, the US Navy and Air Force support the Whirlwind machine, a system for Distant Early Warning (DEW) comprising a network of radars. The Whirlwind is succeeded by the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), a huge machine that can collect data from various radars, interpret "data relating to unidentified aircraft", and point missiles at incoming threats. SAGE is only semi-automatic in the sense that it requires a human operator. It is one of the first fully interactive real-time systems that can provide answers within a few seconds. Info flows through phone lines to the users. 1950s:1	1945: US Army's ENIAC 1950s: Interactive computing
Human- machine symbiosis	The SAGE inspires a few thinkers, including JCR Licklider at the MIT Lincoln Lab, to see computing in a new light. Licklider thinks of it as an example of human-machine symbiosis, "where the machine functions as a problem-solving partner". Humans and machines are interdependent on each other and form a single system. 1950s:2	1950s: More thoughts 1950: Engelbart 1959: Baran

1950s Interactive graphics	JCR Licklider has a chance encounter Wes Clark at MIT's Lincoln Lab. Clark teaches Licklider how to programme the TX-2 (evolved from the TX-0), a machine which occupies a few rooms and has 64,000 bytes of memory. The TX-2 displays information on a video screen, making it one of the earliest machines for interactive graphic work. 1950s:3	Early '50s: Whirlwind
Licklider	Licklider goes away and starts thinking about computers' potential to transform society. With computers, most citizens would be "informed about, and interested in, and involved in, the process of government". 1950s:4	Early 1950s: Man-machine symbiosis

1950 Big computers	There are less than a dozen electronic computers. They are so big that they fill entire "air-conditioned warehouses". 1950:1	1950s: TX-2
Univac	The designers of ENIAC come up with the Univac (Universal Automatic Computer), the first mass-produced computer. Thermionic valves have practically been replaced. 1950:2	1947: Transistor 1945: ENIAC 1953: IBM
December 1950 Engelbart	Douglas Engelbart (who happened to be a radar operator during World War II) envisions interactive computing with keyboard and screen display (instead of on punchcards), as a way of managing an ever increasingly complex world of technology. 1950:3	1950s: Licklider Early '50: Whirlwind radar network

1952 NSA	President Truman forms the NSA (National Security Agency) to protect US "executive and military communications". The agency is shrouded in secrecy. Only a handful know of its existence. NSA practically stands for "No Such Agency". The NSA does not need warrants to tap into communications coming in and out of America. Its job is said to regularly spy on the American people. 1952:1	1947: Truman Doctrine Below: NSA's 701 computer
NSA's 701	IBM unveils the "Defence Calculator", later renamed the "701", capable of "2200 multiplications per second". The NSA uses it to break increasingly difficult encryption codes. 1952:1	1943: Hitler's Enigma 1957: 4th Amendment 1977: NSA's DES

1953 IBM computers	IBM (instituted in 1911) starts building large electronic computers. IBM machines are not as good as Univacs (succeeding the ENIAC) but marketing strategy make its sales better than Univacs. 1953:1	1950: Univac 1954: FORTRAN
Eisenhower	Dwight Eisenhower is elected US President. He holds office from 1953-61. 1953:2	1945: Truman 1961: JFK

1954 FORTRAN	The first high level programming language, FORTRAN, is published by IBM. 1954:1	1953: IBM builds computers

1957 October 1957 Sputnik I	It is the International Geophysical Year. The Soviets launch the Sputnik. The space race begins. There is widespread panic that the Sputnik proved Soviet capability to launch ICBMs. Eisenhower looks to the scientific community for advice. (He distrusts the military.) "Eisenhower was the first president to host a White House dinner specifically to single out the scientific and engineering communities as guests of honour, just as the Kennedys would later play host to artists and musicians." 1957:1	1947: Truman Doctrine Above: Sputnik II
November 1957 Sputnik II	The Soviets launch Sputnik II, carrying the first space traveller, the dog Laika. Eisenhower picks James R. Killian Jr. as the nation's science advisor. There is great urgency to pump money into R&D. 1957:2	Sputnik I 1958: ARPA

Early 1958 ARPA	Eisenhower forms the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to stem rivalries in the military for R&D funding. Budget is approved for $2 billion. Roy Johnson, ARPA's first director, defines ARPA's mission in military terms — to counter the perceived Soviet threat. His vision: "global surveillance satellites, space defence interceptor vehicles, strategic orbital weapon systems, stationary communication satellites, manned space stations and a moon base". 1958:1	1957: Space Race Below: NASA; ARPA budget slashed
1958 NASA	NASA is formed. Space projects and missile programmes are transferred from ARPA to NASA or passed back to the military. ARPA's budget is slashed to $150 million. Roy Johnson resigns, leaving instructions to consider 4 choices for the future of ARPA: Abolish ARPA Expand ARPA No change Redefine ARPA's mission 1958:2	Above: ARPA budget Below: ARPA's new mission 1959: US R&D spending 1961: ARPA budget up again
ARPA's new mission	ARPA reshapes itself by detaching itself from the Pentagon and focusing on long-term research efforts, in contrast to the Defence Department's short-term goals. ARPA would fund the really advanced "far-out" research. Most importantly, ARPA begins to tap the universities where the best scientific talents are located. ARPA becomes a "high-risk, high-gain" research sponsor. ARPA begins to have a distinctive style, and its small size allows "the personality of its director to permeate the whole organisation". 1958:2	1958: ARPA formed 1959: R&D spending 1961: Ruina heads ARPA
Integrated circuits	The first integrated circuit, or silicon chip, is produced by the US. 1958:3	1949: Printed circuit 1964: Word processor 1965: Minicomputer

1959 US R&D spending	Between 1959 and 1964, US R&D spending rises from $5 billion annually to $13 billion annually. That's 3% of the GNP. 1959:1	1958: ARPA budget
Late 1959 to 1960 Baran's network proposal	Paul Baran, an engineer who has worked as a technician on the Univac, the first commercial computer, joins the computer science department at RAND Corp and starts thinking about the "survivability of communication systems under nuclear attack". He is the first to see that command and control problems could be solved by digital computer technology. 1959:2 What's command and control? Command means, when you say "Launch missiles", the missiles are launched. Control means when you don't say "Launch missiles", the missiles aren't launched.	1953: IBM 1961: Ruina - command & control 1965: Support from RAND
Redundant links	Baran visits the Pentagon. He sees that computer networks could be made more "robust and reliable" by introducing redundant link. Independently of Licklider and Engelbart, he imagines "the future of digital technology and the symbiosis between humans and machines". 1959:3	1950: Engelbart 1950s: Licklider
"Hot potato routing"	Baran invents "hot potato routing" (packet-switching) and tries to persuade AT&T of its merits, but is unsuccessful. 1959:4	1965: Davies' packet-switching 1971: AT&T still not interested

Late 1950s DEC	Ken Olsen leaves MIT on a venture to commercialize MIT's TX-2 computer. He founds Digital Equipment Corp to make and sell components, then builds the minicomputer, which interacts directly with the user. At the same time, time-sharing — an alternative to batch processing — is catching on. Batch processing relies on punchcards or magnetic tape for manual input. Queues are long and it was common to wait more than a day for results to compute. Time-sharing on the other hand gives interactive access to many users via terminals. Users interact directly with the mainframe, with the illusion that they have the computer all to themselves, when in fact they have only a fraction of the computing power. However, the direct access of time-sharing eliminates the long wait in the case of batch processing. 1959:5	1965: 1st minicomputer

Early 1960s E-mail (single machine)	The first e-mail programme called Mailbox is installed on a time-sharing computer at MIT as a convenient way of getting around odd working hours. People send mail to each other on the same machine. E-mail would evolve from an interesting toy to a useful tool. 1960s:1	Late '50s: Time-sharing 1972: E-mail between 2 machines

1960 Satellite telephone	The US launches the satellites Echo and Courier for relaying telephone calls between America and Europe. 1960:1	1927: Transatlantic phone link 1972: SATNET

1961 JFK	John F. Kennedy is elected US President. He is president from 1961 to 1963. 1961:1	1953: Eisenhower
Jack Ruina heads ARPA	ARPA's third director, Jack P. Ruina (the first scientist to head ARPA), introduces a "relaxed management style and decentralized structure". Ruina believes in "picking the best people and letting them pick the best technology". ARPA's annual budget goes up to $250 million. Ruina is himself a short-timer. He isn't bothered by high turnover and believes that ARPA would "benefit from frequent exposure to fresh views". Projects undertaken by ARPA thus far: "[b]allistic missile defence ... nuclear test detection ... behavioral research and command and control". 1961:2	1958: ARPA budget 1969: ARPA budget drops
May 1961 Ruina recruits Licklider	A large computer catches Ruina's attention. The huge, expensive Q-32 is a hand-me-down from an axed Air Force project. Ruina wants to use it for command and control — it would provide "high speed, reliable information" for making military decisions. 1961:3 Ruina recruits JCR Licklider, an "eminent psychologist" with "broad interdisciplinary interests", to head a new behavioral sciences office. After spending a lot of time with computers, Licklider has long been expressing the idea that computers could be used as more than just "adding machines". They could "have the potential to act as extensions of the whole human being, as tools that could amplify the range of human intelligence and expand the reach of our analytical powers". 1961:4	Late '59-'60: Baran - command & control 1950s: Chance encounter with Wes Clark 1950s: Licklider 1950: Engelbart

1964 Word processor	IBM introduces the first word processor. 1964:1	1958: Integrated circuit 1979: Videotext
Network conference	At a conference in Virginia, Larry Roberts, JCR Licklider and others stay up late "talking about the potential of computer networks". Roberts goes away with the revelation that "everything worth doing inside a computer had already been done", and decides to start working on communications between computers. 1964:2	1965: Proposed networking experiment

1965 Minicomputer	The first minicomputer is produced in the US. 1965:1	Late '50s: Olson's DEC 1958: Integrated circuit 1971: Microprocessor
Networking experiment	Tom Marill, a psychologist who has been a student of Licklider, starts a small time-sharing company looking for some R&D work. He proposes to ARPA that he conduct a "networking experiment tying Lincoln's TX-2 to the SDC Q-32 in Santa Monica". This would be one of the first real experiments connecting disparate machines over long distances. However, Marill's company is so small that ARPA recommends the project to be operated under MIT's Lincoln Lab. Lincoln Lab takes to the idea and puts Larry Roberts happily in charge. Marill has seen a lot of computing research being duplicated and wants to tie up all the work being done in different places. He uses a crude 2000bps modem and comes up with what he calls a protocol for sending information back and forth between computers. 1965:2	1950s: Licklider 1964: Network conference 1967: Roberts presents the idea
Baran's distributed network almost built	Paul Baran has the full support of RAND and sends a "formal recommendation to the Air Force that a distributed switching network be built". The Air Force agrees. However, without the cooperation of AT&T or the newly formed DCA (Defense Communications Agency), Baran decides to wait until "a competent organisation came along". 1965:3	Late '59-'60: No takers for Baran Below: Davies' packet network
Autumn 1965 Davies	Just after Paul Baran's halt (previous paragraph), Donald Watts Davies, a physicist at the British NPL (National Physical Lab), writes the first of several notes about a computer network much like Baran's, and sends them out to some interested people. 1965:4	Late '59-'60: Baran
The following Spring Packet- switching network	Davies (previous paragraph) gives a public lecture in London describing the notion of sending short blocks of data, called packets, through a digital store-and-forward network. A man from the Ministry of Defence tells Davies about Paul Baran's work. With encouragement from the British telecommunications people, Davis applies for funding and implements an experimental packet-switching network at the NPL. Davies is the one who came up with the term packet-switching. Although he is later embarrassed to find out that Baran had got there first, he consoled himself with the fact that at least he "got the name". Baran's version was called distributed adaptive message block switching. 1965:5	1967: Ann Arbor network proposal

1967 Ann Arbor network proposal	Larry Roberts makes use of an ARPA meeting at Ann Arbor to propose the experiment of connecting all time-sharing computers to one another, over dial-up telephone lines. He is greeted with little enthusiasm as the plan would be a drain on valuable computing resources, with the added burden on the host computer of having to act as communications router. Furthermore, a standard protocol is needed as each computer speaks a different language. No one is excited about the network. No one can see why anyone would want to exchange data with anyone else, when all they need is right in front of them. At the end of the meeting, Wes Clark suggests that a small computer be inserted between each host and the network, to do the task of routing. By coincidence, in England, this is exactly what Davies has separately concluded. 1967:1	1965: Roberts in charge 1965: Davies 1967: IMP
Communica- tions privacy	The US Supreme Court respects the right to privacy and reverses the 1928 decision on the Fourth Amendment, extending it to cover personal communications, not just physical entities. 1967:2	1928: 4th Amendment 1976: Public-key encryption

1967-68 IMP	Larry Roberts and Wes Clark implement the IMP (Interface Message Processors). An IMP is a separate computer coming between the host computer and the network. It would send and receive data, check for errors, retransmit in the case of errors, route data, and verify message delivery. 1967:3	1967: Ann Arbor 1969: Students play with IMPs 1970: Terminal IMPs

1969 Protocol RFC	Steve Crocker distributes the first RFC (Request For Comment) titled "Host Software", an open invitation for feedback on computer handshakes. RFCs would become the "accepted way of recommending, reviewing and adopting new technical standards". It was "a simple mechanism for distributing documentation open to anyone", used for disseminating ideas and "spreading the network culture". 1969:1	1977: Header wars
Network Working Group	An ad hoc assemblage of young talents forms the Network Working Group (NWG), an informal group trying to come up with protocols. New standards would "often emerge by consensus". 1969:1 The NWG takes the "layered approach to protocols" — a methodology starting from low level to high level interface. 1969:2	Above: computer handshakes 1972: INWG
Telnet	Under time pressure, the NWG comes up with Telnet, a protocol that enables remote log-ins. 1969:3 A basic protocol will not appear until 1971 — this will be the Network Control Protocol (NCP). 1969:4	1971: NCP
1st ARPA network	This first network consisting of 4 nodes (UCLA, SRI, Santa Barbara and Utah) is established. It uses dedicated links and suffers disruptions when students begin to play with the IMPs, turning it off and on, resetting it and reloading it. 1969:5	1965: Davies' packet network 1967: the first IMP 1970: IMP testing
	The American government has realized the "strategic value" of the information held by the "handful of computers around the world". The notion of establishing links between these computers is supported by two reinforcing ideas: There is advantage in cooperation and sharing of information between the defence-related projects taking place. Also, "frequent, informal correspondence" could result. The physical security of the data stored on these computers was threatened by the Cold War's possibility of a nuclear conflict. 1969:6	1947: Truman Doctrine 1958: ARPA 1959: Baran
ALOHANET	The ALOHANET, designed by Norm Abramson, is constructed. It consists of radios broadcasting data back and forth among "7 computers stationed over 4 islands" in Hawaii, using small taxi-cab radios. 1969:7	1972: Radio packet network
December 1969 ARPA moves to Arlington Vietnam War	ARPA HQ moves out from the Pentagon to a rented office building in Arlington, Virginia. ARPA budget is declining from its "historic peak" — "[T]he Vietnam War was consuming everything". 1969:8 However, the computing budget is not decreased. Larry Roberts works successfully to get support from the top and from "an additional dozen principal investors across the country to buy into the idea of the ARPA network". Meanwhile, Frank Heart's team continues to improve the hardware and software of the IMPs. 1969:9	1961: ARPA budget 1971: Selling the ARPANET 1970: Improving the IMPs

Internet Time-Line: Part 2 (1970 onwards).