DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET

The Government of the United States started a project in 1960s to develop an efficient system of data communication. Under this project , a network of 4 computers was established in September 1969 in the United States.
The Network was called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). It was developed to allow scientists at different locations to share information and collaborate on military and scientific projects.
One of ARPANET's primary goals was to allow multiple users to send and receive information at the same time over the same communications paths such as phone lines. The network operated with a technique called packet switching in which digital data was sent in small packages called packets. The packets contained dated, address information, error-control information and sequencing information. The address information was used to send the packets of datd to their destination.The sequencing information was used to help reassemble the packets into their original order for presentation to the receiver.
The idea of computer networking soon became popular. Several universities and research organizations developed their own computer networks. They joined their networks to the US Government's network. The original communication network became a network of networks. This network of computer networks was called the Internet.
In 1989, all previous networks were replaced by National Science Foundation's network (NSFNET).This was an important decision. Now the network could be used for civilian purposes also, and applications of the internet grew rapidly.