Oct 9th 2011, 22:43:02
DARPA net was previously ARPANET, which originated as RAND net in 1958 under a contract with the US Air Force in an effort to investigate maintaining their command and control structure after nuclear attack. It did not become DARPA net (the structure we know know today as the internet, including TCP/IP protocol) until the early to mid 70's (1972-1976, Depending on whose version you believe, I tend to go with when the money began to flow directly from congress instead of just the DoD, which was 1972) when it was renamed DARPA net.
ARPANET was the extension of the research project that was initialized in the 1950's as a packet switching communication tool research project, but this project never really achieved any sort of sustainable/extensible results, and thus isn't really given credit with the "invention" of the internet...although they certainly did pave the way. It could send 8 bit information from terminal to terminal via NCP protocol over short distances only, and was not reliable enough to be a communications tool at the time. Although this is, in the absolute strictest sense, the first internet communication, it did not get taken to the next level for computer to computer communication until the early 70's when DARPA took it over and began applying it to broader military applications in the mid-70's....which was directed and funded by a congressional sub-committee (House Intelligence Committee) which Al Gore was a member of from 1976 to 1980. He was sitting on the committee in 1978 when DARPA was directed to research the implementation of TCP/IP protocols for government and business use, and received the funding from the committee to make it happen.
The infamous quote "I invented the internet" was a falsification by a tabloid based on a comment made in a television interview during the presidential elections in which he was asked what some of his most significant achievements were while sitting in Congress - the original quote was along the lines that he sat on the committee that made the decision to make the internet a much more powerful tool than simply an internet communication device, and spread it beyond the realm of the DoD.
ARPANET was the extension of the research project that was initialized in the 1950's as a packet switching communication tool research project, but this project never really achieved any sort of sustainable/extensible results, and thus isn't really given credit with the "invention" of the internet...although they certainly did pave the way. It could send 8 bit information from terminal to terminal via NCP protocol over short distances only, and was not reliable enough to be a communications tool at the time. Although this is, in the absolute strictest sense, the first internet communication, it did not get taken to the next level for computer to computer communication until the early 70's when DARPA took it over and began applying it to broader military applications in the mid-70's....which was directed and funded by a congressional sub-committee (House Intelligence Committee) which Al Gore was a member of from 1976 to 1980. He was sitting on the committee in 1978 when DARPA was directed to research the implementation of TCP/IP protocols for government and business use, and received the funding from the committee to make it happen.
The infamous quote "I invented the internet" was a falsification by a tabloid based on a comment made in a television interview during the presidential elections in which he was asked what some of his most significant achievements were while sitting in Congress - the original quote was along the lines that he sat on the committee that made the decision to make the internet a much more powerful tool than simply an internet communication device, and spread it beyond the realm of the DoD.
