The development of the internet
The first computer networks were ARPANET, the British NPL, the American RAND and MERIT also the French CYCLADES.
- The ancestor of today's internet was released in 1969 known as ARPANET, with the help of the Advanced Research Projects. At first it has connected 4 educational institutions and it's purpose was to share CPU time and computation.
- The British NPL (National Physical Laboratory) was the first global network. In 1970 it has already provided a large scale of online services and has given access for about 200 users.
- The RAND (Research and Development) operates even today.
- The founders of the MERIT network has created the first "host-to-host” connection between 3 universities. Through the network it was possible to share files and to remotely print.
- The French CYCLADES was created in 1973. The network's innovation was, that only a part of the network was responsible for data exchange and through this it has decreased data traffic.
Overall, the last 5 mentioned networks have partially merged to create today's internet.
However there were other systems that helped the internet to spread, for example BITNET and CSNET (1981),
the EUNET (1982) also the USENET, NSFNET and the EARN. The development of today's WWW (World Wide Web)
was started by French telephone company in 1978 and was available to the French general public by 1982.
The WWW had spread across the World and became a vital part to today's society.