@sldebo
You might want to search on wikipedia for a detailed history/timeline of the net.
However, one thing I can tell you for sure, soldiers didnt built the internet, they also are not securing the internet and wars dont make the net more stable (lol).
I know that it was in the early phase a military project meant to provide a safe and most importantly independent communication network in case of a military strike.
Even tho it was sponsored by the military didnt mean that soldiers/militairs developed it. We can thank people from early network technology companys and universities like the MIT for that. As soon as it got dropped by the military the net became a tool for universities and scientistic communication and soon after that reached the public.
With kind regards,
Black.Star
I remember working on packet switched networking and DOS 3.1 in 1974-77 at Randolph Air Force Base, while working with Burroughs and Sperry Univac engineers, as an enlisted man, learning to push data between the AF Personnel center and Cheyene Mountian for NORAD over telephone wires at a 1200 baud rate, so I will have to differ with your version of the facts. That is 1200 bits a second, not kilobits, BTW.
And also BTY the Internet came about when the US DOD developed a network that could exist with a central computer controlling it, so that in case of a nuclear strike, the communications couldn't be taken out with a few strikes. The first networks came about in the late 60's and ARPAnet was the result
In the late 70's, defense contractors and a few universities were allowed to connect. This was the first non military use of what was to become part of the internet.
In addition to doing their project work, the participants started using the method to work on their own projects and just to communicate ideas back and forth. (You should heard the ass chewing I got for flirting with a cute redhead in CM over the network, apparently they did not want "Unofficial" communications showing up in the logs, I damn near got an Article 15 over that) This caused the DOD to split APANet in to two networks, MILNET and ARPANet.
By the late 80's there was so much traffic on ARPAnet that was civilian in nature that the National Science Foundation (A US Entity) build a communication backbone to provide bandwidth intensive communications to all the people connecting to ARPANet and MILNET. At the same time they also started funding networks at private institutions and universities and add them to their network. All over the world this example was soon followed, and this is the first point where a real civilian influence could have taken place. But the Internet had already been built. It was just at this time, the NSF's network did not allow for any comercial uses.
Not until 1991, when a bunch of greedy Capitalists, The Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX)was established as a way to sell data from online databases,did a network come about that did not have restrictive use policies. It was built on the network protocols, backnbone, and best practices of ARAPNet.,and NSFnet.
These entities gradually morphed into the Internet, but civilian interaction did not occur until the packet switched network model had been built and tested, implemented, and used for nearly a decade by the US DOD.
