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● THE INTERNET! During the 1960s there were various proposals to link mainframe computers. In the fall of 1969, DARPA and ARPA linked mainframe computers in the national labs to one another, and to computers in relevant federal agencies. The net was quickly extended to mainframe computers at universities doing federally-funded scientific research. The “killer app” turned out to be e-mail, originally created to allow instant, secure communication between DARPA, ARPA and the national labs.
● THE PERSONAL COMPUTER! Small computers were first designed by DEC, and prototypes appeared in December of 1957. There was a huge need for such computers in nuclear physics research, and DEC then designed the first small computers for sale for specifically these applications. They were the PDP series. The first PDP 1 was sold to the nuclear laboratory at Chalk River, Canada in 1960. Former employees of DEC then designed and marketed the earliest personal computers, the NOVA series, in 1970.
● THE WORLD WIDE WEB! Tim
Berners-Lee at the international particle physics research
center, CERN, was aware that experiments had hundreds of
participants, who were headquartered all over the world. These
investigators needed to be able to see a magazine-like page,
that could be updated several times a day if needed, that kept
them abreast of all developments relevant to the particular
experiment they were involved with. He came up with the world
wide web, the web page, the web browser, and the hypertext
language needed to produce such a magazine-like page. The
earliest web page appeared in 1990, and it was basically just a
directory page with hyperlinks. By 2000 the web was completely
ubiquitous, thanks to personal computers.
 Sir Tim Berners-Lee |
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The idea was that the web could and would grow into the greatest information resource in human history! Every science researcher, every distinguished scholar, every active university faculty member, every museum, every library, all national labs and all federally-supported scientific and engineering projects and agencies (NASA, etc.) would have linked web pages giving up-to-the-instant information on all topics of research and study. Mankind's accumulated knowledge of nature and of human culture in all historical eras would be instantly at the fingertips of everyone owning or having access to a personal computer! The unique contents of all museums and art galleries and major libraries could be viewed at any time!
