Brief History of Networking

Brief History of Networking

  • Submitted By: netagent
  • Date Submitted: 05/12/2013 11:41 AM
  • Category: Technology
  • Words: 359
  • Page: 2
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Brief History of Networking

Making devices talk to each other for the purposes of communication is nothing new. Early forays into telephony such as the telegraph and telephone have since evolved into more complicated devices, and now a computer can be networked to the Internet, another PC, or even a home stereo. In the early 1960s, individual computers had to be physically shared, making the sharing of data and other information difficult. Seeing this was impractical, researchers developed a way to “connect” the computers [1] so they could share their resources more efficiently. Hence, the early computer network was born.

Through the then-new communication protocol known as packet switching, a number of applications, such as secure voice transmission in military channels became possible. These new circuits provided the basis for the communication technologies of the rest of the 20th century, and with further refinement these were applied to computer networks.

These networks provided the basis for the early ARPANET, which was the forerunner of the modern Internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) submitted the proposal for the project on June 3, 1968 [2] which was approved a few weeks later. This proposal entitled “Resource Sharing Computer Networks” would allow ARPA not only the further sharing of their data, but would allow them to further their research in a wide variety of military and scientific fields. After being tested in four locations, the network spread and the new protocols created for its use evolved into today’s World Wide Network.



In 1977, early PC-based Local Area Networks, or LANs (Local Area Networks) were spreading [3] and while initially restricted to academics and hobbyists, they eventually found their way into the workplace and in homes, although the explosion into the latter two arenas is a relatively recent phenomenon. LAN variants also developed, including Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) to...

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