When the average American thinks about the history of the Internet, what most likely comes to mind are a lot of acronyms and a few names of old guys who knew a lot about technology. In other words people generally think of a bunch of nerds in association with the Internet.
People are right to think about nerds in association with the beginnings of the Internet and World Wide Web. However, I found a really interesting and well built site called Nerds 2.0.1 that provides a glance at the history of the Internet. This site, built by Robert X. Cringely (whose name and picture are not very much unlike that of a nerd) and hosted by PBS, emphasizes the transitions that the Internet went through in order to get to where it is today which is in just about every home, office, and business anywhere.
I found it really interesting that the Internet (or its predecessor) began with the military and for military purposes. Then it morphed and became part of the “nerd” world. And another transition in the 1980s took the Internet to businesses. With Apple and IBM’s personal computers the Internet was made available to “real” people. Cringely writes, “At first, computers were the tools of technically inclined nerds, but new applications drew other people to the keyboard.”
Another thing that is pretty interesting on this site is the page entitled “Glossary of Geek.” It provides lots of useful terminology that is associated with the Internet. Something that I didn’t know was ALOHAnet (the first definition) which was created by Norm Abramson in 1970 to connect the islands of Hawaii over a network of radio transmitters.
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