History of the Internet: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:15, 6 October 2005

Revision as of 01:29, 7 October 2005

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==Early Internet work==

Kahn recruited [[Vint Cerf]] of the [[University of California, Los Angeles]] to work with him on the problem. They soon worked out a fundamental reformulation, where the differences between network protocols were hidden by using a common [[internetwork protocol]], and instead of the network being responsible for reliability, as in the ARPANET, the hosts became responsible. Cerf credits [[Herbert Zimmerman]] and [[Louis Pouzin]] (designer of the [[CYCLADES]] network) with important influences on this design. Some accounts also credit the early networking work at [[Xerox]] [[PARC]] as an important technical influence.

I HAVE GIGANTIC BALLS!!!

With the role of the network reduced to the bare minimum, it became possible to join almost any networks together, no matter what their characteristics were, thereby solving Kahn's initial problem. (One popular saying has it that [[TCP/IP]], the eventual product of Cerf and Kahn's work, will run over "two tin cans and a string".) A computer called a ''gateway'' (later changed to ''[[router]]'' to avoid confusion with other types of ''gateway'') is provided with an interface to each network, and forwards [[packet]]s back and forth between them.