Page 74 - Encyclopedia Of World History

424 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

How to Stop Worrying and
Learn to Love the Internet

This piece first appeared in the News Review sec-
tion of The Sunday Times on 29 August 1999. Internet and the
World Wide Web
For instance, “interactivity” is one of those neol-
Internet was born in 1969 as ARPAnet, a research net-
ogisms that Mr. Humphrys likes to dangle
work funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency
between a pair of verbal tweezers, but the reason
of the U.S. government that connected computers at the
we suddenly need such a word is that during this
University of California at Los Angeles, the Stanford
century we have for the first time been dominated
Research Institute, the University of California at Santa
by non-interactive forms of entertainment: cin-
Barbara, and the University of Utah. In 1972 it was first
ema, radio, recorded music and television. Before
demonstrated to the public, and in the same year it
they came along all entertainment was interac-
began carrying e-mail. More and more educational insti-
tive: theatre, music, sport—the performers and
tutions, government agencies, and corporations began
audience were there together, and even a respect-
using the Internet—and finding new uses for it—until by
fully silent audience exerted a powerful shaping
the end of the 1980s it was an essential tool for research
presence on the unfolding of whatever drama
and had begun to demonstrate its value for business and
they were there for.We didn’t need a special word
personal applications. For example, in 1978 Roy Trub-
for interactivity in the same way that we don’t
shaw and Richard Bartle invented the first online fantasy
(yet) need a special word for people with only
game or MUD (Multiple-User Dungeon) at Essex Uni-
one head.
versity in England, and in 1989 Alan Cox at the Univer-
I expect that history will show “normal” main-
sity College of Wales released his own version onto the
stream twentieth century media to be the aberra-
Internet.
tion in all this.“Please, miss, you mean they could
In 1990 at the high-energy physics laboratories of the
only just sit there and watch? They couldn’t do
Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)
anything? Didn’t everybody feel terribly isolated
near Geneva, Switzerland,Tim Berners-Lee developed the
or alienated or ignored?”
first hypertext browser and coined the term World Wide
“Yes, child, that’s why they all went mad.
Web. Early in 1993, University of Illinois student Marc
Before the Restoration.”
Andreessen at the National Center for Supercomputing
“What was the Restoration again, please,
Applications, funded by the U.S. National Science Foun-
miss?”
dation, programmed the first version of Mosaic, the easy-
“The end of the twentieth century, child.When
to-use browser that would introduce millions of people
we started to get interactivity back.”
to the Web. Both the Netscape and Microsoft Internet
Source: Adams, D. (1999). Retrieved from http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/ Explorer browsers were based on Mosaic, and it is esti-
19990901-00-a.html
mated that more than 10 percent of the world’s popula-
tion used the Internet in 2002.
The mainframe-timesharing concept of the 1970s has
by two friends, and Bill Gates dropped out of college to evolved into a client-server architecture. A server is a ded-
help his buddies found Microsoft. For a few years after the icated computer, often large, that houses centralized
Apple II computer appeared in 1977, an individual could databases (in companies, universities, or government
write a commercially viable software program and start a agencies) or connects directly to the Internet. Originally,
small company to market it. But the greatest advances clients were dumb terminals with little or no computing
after the mid-1980s again required the combination of power of their own, but today they are powerful personal
massive government funding and large corporations. computers connected to the server and able to access its