Did internet exist before 1990s?

Question

Are they all different nets such as Usenet, Eternet. No İnter-Net until 1990s?

MrOracle · Accepted Answer

The first real networking was created at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), which created most modern computing. Many people visited PARC - notably Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple, but that also includes the guys that founded SUN Microsystems. SUN stands for Stanford University Network, and these were UNIX computers that were networked together at Stanford University. Friends of theirs, who also got inspiration from PARC went onto found a little networking company called Cisco - obviously named after San Francisco, the main "big city" in the area.

By the early 80s, these small companies had started hooking up university computing departments and big government contractors onto a large network using funding from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). As the technology improved over time, more and more users from more universities and big companies were allowed to use the network - companies like Coke and General Motors and Boeing were being connected, but most users really only had access to networked email in those days unless you were a researcher or in the computing or IT department.

It wasn't until the early 90s that major breakthroughs came that allowed the Internet to be opened up to individuals. I ran a BBS (a Bulletin Board System, which was really just a computer with a couple of phone modems attached that other users could call up and use), and I had a dial-up Internet account in the very early 90s - when most people had never heard of the Internet, and before graphical web browsers even existed - to help move files and emails around the country faster. Eventually, we started trying to use Mosaic - the first graphical browser - in around 92/93, but there were probably less than 500 websites, and 400 of them were university research websites that were all text. But by 93, the web was exploding with lots and lots of new, crude websites going up, and this new browser called Netscape Navigator being far better than Mosaic, which was old and unstable.

Around that time, the first 28.8 modems were coming out, but even with "all that speed", it would take 10 seconds for a postage-stamp-sized photo to download, and a modern Amazon product page would probably take 7-10 minutes to load with all of the photos and graphics we're used to today. But it seemed like every week, some small thing about the web got better, and more and more features came available, speeds improved, graphics got better, and the web became increasingly useful. This was still LONG before YouTube or most web-based apps, but still, you could make reservations and buy things (though with nearly zero security much of the time).

Your average, non-computer-geek person didn't get an Internet connection until the late 90s, and even average computer geek people didn't get one until 95-96. There just wasn't enough utility before that for most people to go through the hassle and pay the money. WiFi didn't exist so everything had to be hardwired, and of course, that limited things, as well as the very slow speeds.

I was the third person in my city to get a cable modem (I was scheduled to be first, but all of the installers in my area had to go to training, and so my install got delayed and they brought in someone from another area), and it was a glorious 1Mb/s down and 128k up if I remember correctly, and that didn't happen until 1998 or 99. For context, I have fiber optic Internet today with 1.3Gb/s in both directions, or roughly 1300 times the download speed compared to what I had back then - and the vast majority of people were still on dialup.

For context, Google didn't release the Google Search website until September of 1998 - and at that time they were a tiny "running out of a garage" company and were just one of many Internet search companies - so using the Internet before that wasn't useful to most people.

lightbulb27 · Accepted Answer

DARPA project I believe was start of it, you should ask Al Gore (joke). By late 1980's it was in university as unix boxes talk to other unix boxes. Soon after came email in 1990s into corp america. Man, that was amazing... to be able to send messages around within a work team! Totally messed with productivity too. Then html showed up, and search engines... speeds increased, and you got the internet as you know it.

BadApple69 · Answer

The internet was created in the 1980s as a military contractor/defense network. Before that there were online bulletin boards (BBS or CBBS) created in the late 1970s that you could dial into with a modem. But of course no one had computers in their homes in those days.

exitseven · Answer

The Arpanet was the first packet switched networks. It came out in 1969. It became a real network between the government, Universities and high tech companies. It was the precursor to the internet.

strateguy632 · Answer

No.  tThe World Wide Web began in 1992 not before. In my 11 grade computer class we did not have http yet!

RavVid · Answer

ARPANET was the technological foundation late 1960's. Ethernet is the transport layer.. Usenets are groups like GAG

jshm2 · Answer

Yes. Even before DARPA there was various blue and black box schemes between various universities and organisations.

Makeushiver · Answer

It was strictly US Dept. of Defense use until the early '80s ( I believe). It became the world wide web after that

OddBeMe · Answer

Its tech did and was used by NASA to communicate with the Apollo missions.

Anonymous · Answer

The military used a form of internet before what we now have. Don't remember what they called it

Red_Arrow · Answer

Yes, it has been around longer than that.

FunkyMonkee · Answer

Yes. I first got on in the mid to late `80's.

paledreams · Answer

Before my time, try google or Wikipedia

jahaims · Answer

A simple Google search will answer that

legalboxers · Answer

yes the armed forces had something

bellissimoe · Answer

Yeahh baby

Anonymous · Answer

Yes there was

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