NSF & the Birth of the Internet

“There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the world was not connected. But then a small group of visionaries created the internet,” is how an absolutely fascinating new special report from the National Science Foundation starts out: NSF and the Birth of the Internet.

“We know today that the Internet has changed our society in ways not seen since the invention of the printing press. But how did we get here?

Just as the development of the printed word was really about two technologies — the invention of movable type and mass produced paper — the story of the Internet is about computing and the development of sophisticated networks to connect them. This report tells the story of how NSF helped these two technologies develop into the modern Internet.

The potential power of computers to transform the world started to become a reality in the 1960s. Computer scientists and engineers began building more powerful computers and finding new ways to use them, from helping NASA to put a man on the moon to speeding up accounting at major corporations. NSF funded the development of several academic computer centers across the country to help advance the field of computing. The pace of innovation and development was so fast that researchers needed new ways to communicate and share ideas.”

The best part? What a great resource for remembering how this all got started. For me personally? I was relieved to discover that the internet is not, as I was led to believe, a series of tubes.  😉