What has Interconnectivity Wrought?

The late 1960's and 1970's involved using models that were thought up by Licklider and hardware was developed during that time to link 4 universities together, UCLA, UC at Santa Barbara, Stanford and the University of Utah all became linked using Internet Message Processors (IMP) which you may think of as modems. At this time there were no microprocessors, so everything was large. The connections between the four colleges became the start of the Internet. In 1972, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn created the TCP/IP protocol and computers have used that protocol ever since. Nodes were added over the next decade, and the email was developed by Ray Tomlinson.

I started using computers in the early 1980's when the Internet became public. I knew folks that shunned me because the role of the computer was considered part of a devilish plan to start a new world order. I had to tell myself that was not true because without humans computers are static (non-living). Now most of the families I knew have game machines and computers all over the house, and I am left with the memories.

Later in the 1980's and the 1990's

All communication in those years were typed information. It was not until Tim Berners-Lee came up with a way of making web pages that the Internet began to attract people other than scholars. By then, the number of interconnected nodes was much larger, and some could foresee a commercial aspect of the WWW. Mr. Berners-Lee had only academia in mind. It seems like Netscape Navigator came along, and then with a GUI version of Windows called Windows 95. Users other than facility of large universities could look at the Internet. I had become very excited that something new was unfolding, and I was at the edge. I forgot watching television except for the Nightly Business Report and the Macneil-Lehrer News Hour. I loved interactive computing because I could research a subject very easily, and also I become better informed of world news. With HTML, instead of a block of text, you had text, photos, sound and format that was easy on the eyes.

First ISP

I used Compuserve at a very slow rate of about 56K. I rate a typewritten page to be very roughly 1 KB, but HTML loaded a web page in about 30 seconds. That is slow indeed. At that time even the colleges were slow. However LANs were making intranets very fast. Dial-up was my only choice, but now DSL is making my connection very fast, but I am paying more for the fastest rate of speed. The government is looking into this and asking if IP's have the right to divide DSL service into different categories and price them accordingly.

My next step is to enter the world of fiber optic speeds. I will also buy a wireless mobile unit in the near future. I cannot begin to extoll the changes the Internet has done in my life. As a researcher, computer repair and builder, and a student who likes to stay home, the WWW and the equipment that runs it has enriched my life a great deal.