Networks

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A very brief history1

Information Networks are not new!

The Social Role of networks: 

Exchange Information, Manipulate Environment, Integrate Social Systems

China and Egypt: Messenger Relays (2000-1000 B.C.)
Greeks: Signal Fires (1300-1100 B.C.)
Romans: Road ways and Aqueducts (beginning 312 B.C.)
Incas: Roads and Information Systems (multicolored cords: quipus) (1400-1500 A.D.)

Meanwhile:  Northern Europe and America

Gutenberg and Moveable Type Printing Press (1455)
Access to information
Availability of information
Claude Chappe: Optical telegraph (France, 1792)
Fransico Salva: First electrical telegraph (1804 used battery power to send a message over one kilometer)
Francis Rolands, in 1816, used static high voltage electricity to send a message over eight miles in London.
Samuel Morse: 1837, refines the telegraph using electromagnetism, develops Morse Code in 1838.
American Civil War demonstrated the use of the system
1866: Transatlantic Cable.
Alexander Graham Bell,1876: Telephone
1880: 50,000 telephone lines in USA.
1930: Telephone network surpasses telegraph.
Television (March 1935-Berlin, New York 1939)
Eisenhower Interstate Highway System (c. 1956) (see also; Roadside Architecture in 1950s America: Reflections of Society)

Each of the Developments

Increased the Speed of Interaction
Increased the Capacity that Networks could Support
Increased Accessibility

Computers and the Internet

Pre-Modern Computer

1642: Pascal's "Pascaline," an adding machine (tax collection).
1673: Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: "Liebniz Stepped Wheel," a mechanical multiplier.
1804: Jacquard "Punch Card," first "program" to control carpet looms.
1833-1843: Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace: "Analytical Engine"--memory, punch cards, and processing unit (machine=brain).
1884: Herman Hollerith (IBM)--Punch Card Tabulator.  Used for U.S. Census in 1899.

Modern Computer:

Alan Turing: 1930-1950--worked on the concept of a machine that could read and process information.  Colossus project in Britain, 1943 (code breaking).
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC): Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania (1943-1949)
Grace Hopper: Refinement of Programming Languages.  Developed a compiled for the UNIVAC (Universal Auto Computer) in 1950.  Programming in English.

The Emergence of the Internet
(another version)

Early Ideas

Immanuel Goldberg (1927) at Zeiss Ikon: Microfilm Selector
Vannevar Bush (1930s at MIT) conceptualizes the "Memex," a "web of memory" for storing and accessing a variety of information.
J.C.R. Licklider: Advanced Research Projects Agency (Director from 1962)
He envisioned, by the 1970s, "Thinking Centers" connected to one another as a means of sharing resources.
ARPANET in 1969--the first of what became "wide-area networks."
Douglas Engelbart at Stanford: Designed an integrated system using Mouse, Keyboard, Keypad, ad windows.  Also developed a word processor, rudimentary hypertext, and system for online collaboration.  (Second host on ARPANET).
Ted Nelson (1962): Coined the word "Hypertext."
Steve Crocker at ARPA: RFCs in 1969--"Request for Comments."

Network Construction and Information Transmission

Centralized, Decentralized, Distributed
Packet Switching
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
Internet in 1983--allowed a variety of machine types and operating systems to be connected using packet switching via TCP/IP over a distributed network.

Other Nets

Usenet (built around the Unix operating system
BITNET (connected academic mainframes)
JANET (in Britain)

Notes:

1.  Information for this presentation has been drawn from, Anne B. Keating and Joseph Hargitai, 1999.  The Wired Professor: A Guide to Incorporating the World Wide Web in College Instruction, New York University Press, New York.  Chapters 1 and 2.