🌐 Embark on a Digital Odyssey with “Things Have Changed”! 🌐
Ever wondered how the maze of the internet came to be? Join us in our latest episode of “Things Have Changed” as we travel back in time to unveil the origins of the digital universe! 🚀
Featuring Voices from the Past:
🎙 Charley Kline: Hear from the young mind at UCLA in 1969, whose keystrokes would echo through time!
🎙 Bill Duvall: Listen to the collaborator from Stanford, making history alongside Charley!
🎙 Larry Roberts: Discover the visionary who sculpted the backbone of digital communication!
Snippets of History:
Uncover the significance of ARPANET, the ambitious project funded by the United States Department of Defense! 💻
Explore the intricate tapestry of innovations and the revolutionary concept of packet switching! 🌟
Witness the development of TCP/IP, the universal language of the Internet! 🌍
Journey Through Decades:
Relive the excitement of the 80s, the era of neon and the advent of domain names! 💫
Reflect on the monumental transformation of the Internet, from a military tool to a global platform! 🔄
A Tale of Resilience and Foresight:
Immerse yourself in stories of challenges, groundbreaking innovations, and limitless human ingenuity! 💡
Ponder our digital past and look forward to the boundless potential of the future! 🌟
Join us on this enlightening journey through the digital ages and stay tuned for more episodes as we uncover the tales and transformations that have shaped our interconnected world! 🎧 Remember, in this ever-evolving digital landscape, Things Have Changed!
Welcome to Bite-sized Tech Chronicles from Things of Change podcast. I'm your host, jed Tabernero, here to guide you through the remarkable tales of technology that have sculpted our digital landscapes. From the nostalgic buzz of dial-up to the instantaneous clicks of today, we've journeyed so far. In this series, we'll unravel the hidden stories and monumental moments that have transformed bites into a vast interconnected universe. Remember when social media was just media? We'll explore the pivotal shifts, the innovations and the unsung heroes that have redefined communication and brought the world closer, one pixel at a time. So plug in, tune in and get ready for a bite-by-by exploration of our tech-infused history. Together, let's discover how the tapestry of technology continues to evolve, shape and connect our world. After all, things have changed. Amidst the hustle of urban life, children now grow with the expectation that the internet is just another basic necessity. Curious, how we got here? Let's unravel the story of how the internet was woven into the fabric of our modern world. Today's episode Connecting Continents the Arpanet to the Internet.
Hari Balakrishnan:
The Arpanet was essentially an overlay built on top of the telephone net and in fact it was a hostile overlay 1969, that's the year when Arpanet, the precursor to the internet we know today, sent its first message.
Jed Tabernero:
Fast forward to now. We're in an era where 4.9 billion people are connected online. That's more than half the global population, 500 hours of video uploaded per minute, over 350,000 Instagram stories shared and approximately 4.1 million gigabytes of data generated All within an internet minute in 2022. Jaw dropping, isn't it? How did we journey from connecting four universities to uniting continents and building a trillion dollar economy? Join me as we explore the digital bridges and binary tales that have intertwined our world. Today we're journeying back to the birth of the internet through the eyes and voices of Charlie Klein, bill Duvall and Larry Roberts.
Charley Kline:
I was a student at UCLA at the time and I was working in the group at UCLA that was developing our end of the hardware and software interface to make this work, and I was the one who was writing the programs on our computer to talk to the Arpanet.
Jed Tabernero:
After this, the year is 1969. Young Charlie, immersed in the world of computer science, is about to send the first message over Arpanet.
Bill Duvall:
I was the architect and the implementer of the software on the SCS940 at SRI. That basically was connecting to the Sigma 7 at UCLA.
Charley Kline:
It was on a terminal like this that I actually attempted to connect to the computer at SRI.
Jed Tabernero:
But this isn't just any project. It's a venture funded by the United States Department of Defense with a vision, a vision network that could endure any disruption.
Charley Kline:
I was typing on a teletype similar to this one late October, on October 29th, we actually tried to communicate, doing that the first couple of times it didn't work and then we found the problems and later on it did. So I typed an L and I wanted, which my system received, format it into a packet, send it to the imp, send it to Bill's machine, to the imp there, which sent it to Bill's machine, where he took it, and I guess Bill had some monitoring software on another terminal or you could see what I was typing.
Bill Duvall:
I was looking straight into memory, actually, oh, okay.
Jed Tabernero:
Bill Duvall, stationed at Stanford, and Charlie Klein, at UCLA, were about to make history. The message LO was transmitted before the system crashed, symbolizing the birth of digital communication and a glimpse of the login to a new era.
Charley Kline:
And so I typed the L and he said he got the L and his system took it, sent it back to me to print on my terminal and my terminal printed the L and I said great, I got the L back. And I typed the O same thing. Then I typed the G and he said wait a minute my system crashed.
Bill Duvall:
We had to rebuild the operating system, change the buffer size, rebuild the operating system and then reboot it and fortunately it didn't take a long time. It was probably 10 or 15 minutes, I would guess.
Charley Kline:
Yeah, it seemed to me that the time from when he told me it crashed he was going to have to think about it for a second and fix it to the time we tried again was about a half hour. We got it working at 10.30, or at least that's when I logged that it worked.
Jed Tabernero:
Answer Larry Roberts. This visionary was already making waves at MIT when he was brought into the ARPANET project. He introduced a concept that would become the backbone of digital communication Packet switching.
Larry Roberts:
In 1958, I started using computers at MIT and somehow the TXO had landed in their lap and I wound up with my own personal computer for 1959. Worst personal workstation. It was a beautiful system. I only had 4K of memory. But I went back in the logs later on and I found I had used 759 hours of computer time personally on the TXO during that year and that was only like three hours a day of my personal computer time.
Jed Tabernero:
ARPANET, a beacon of innovation during the tense years of the Cold War, had the ambitious goal of creating a robust and fail-safe communication network. Larry Roberts, the driving force behind its success, was often hailed as the father of ARPANET.
Larry Roberts:
I now have essentially a message network, communication network, time-shared computers together so that a user at one system could, through his computer system, call through the network to execute programs in other computer systems around the world, around the country, and the communications community basically thought we were all crazy for talking about packets rather than circuits. In any case, we pursued doing this, worked with the ARPANET community of course, thought the communications technology was fine because they were all from the computer field.
Jed Tabernero:
As we moved into the 70s, another turning point emerged the development of TCP IP by Vince Cerf and Bob Kahn.
Hari Balakrishnan:
And in 1978, there was a really good decision made to split TCP from IP and a lot of that motivation was from a group of people at MIT.
Jed Tabernero:
This protocol suite became the universal language of the internet, enabling different networks to communicate seamlessly.
Hari Balakrishnan:
Now, the reason why packet switching and the TCP IP split won in the internet compared to various other proposals that were floating around at the time, is that this architecture, the internet architecture, is Good enough for everything, but optimal for nothing.
Jed Tabernero:
Let's not forget the 80s, a time of neon and innovation. The internet welcomed the advent of domain names, transferring numeric IP addresses into recognizable names, opening the door to a more user-friendly digital world.
Hari Balakrishnan:
On January 24th, apple Computer will introduce Macintosh and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.
Jed Tabernero:
Picture the world adjusting to this new reality, exploring the digital landscape with wonder and anticipation. The journey was filled with challenges, yet each obstacle led to groundbreaking innovations that have defined our interconnected world.
Larry Roberts:
Whereas most PCs today are primarily just text. We'll have copies of the documents. We'll have an optical disk which we see now as being read-write. Very high storage capacity, gigabytes of storage on the optical disk and fitting in the slot in the PC beautifully.
Jed Tabernero:
From its inception as a military communication tool to its evolution into a global platform for connection and knowledge sharing, the internet has undergone a monumental transformation, thanks to pioneers like Charlie, bill and Larry.
Hari Balakrishnan:
The ARPANET was the precursor to the internet and it started not because we wanted to build a communication network to prevent it to work when there was nuclear war or any of these major disasters. It actually had a very concrete goal Just allow people computers were really expensive just allow people, no matter where they were to be able to harness the power of expensive computing far away and make it look, to the extent possible, as if the computers were with you. That was the vision.
Jed Tabernero:
And here we are in a world where the internet is interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives. The digital realm continues to evolve and as we reflect on the transformative journey, we're reminded of the limitless possibilities of human ingenuity. Each keystroke, each connection, each innovation has been a stepping stone to the boundless digital frontier we continue to explore. This tale of resilience, creativity and foresight invites us to ponder our digital past and look forward to the boundless potential of the future. Hey, thanks for joining us today on this enlightening journey through digital ages. We're trying something out, so bear with us as we find our voice. Stay tuned for more episodes of Things of Change podcast as we uncover the tales and transformations that have shaped the world and remember in this ever-evolving digital landscape stay curious.
Jed Tabernero:
The information and opinions expressed in this episode are for informational purposes only and are not intended as financial investment or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on the content provided. Neither the podcast nor its creators are responsible for any action taken as a result of listening to this episode.