Who created the Internet?

[N952JL]

To add to Nubo's point: The same was true for high speed Internet which is now seen as ubiquitous , but just about 10 years ago was unavailable in vast swaths of the nation. Availabilty of 3G (and now 4G) has completely changed the landscape, that in the US I am always connected all the time in (almost) all the places.

None of that you could have imagined 10 years ago and if AOL's push of their cheap dial-in capabilities did not materialize, then we would not be here.

It wasn't AOL. It was Clinton opening the internet to commercial use. The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank. It was used only by Universities working on government projects and government contractors working on the same projects for years until Clinton decided to open it up during his run for his second term. AOL's cheap dial up connections was for their "on line service" not the internet. COMPUSERVE was another of those "on line service". AOL added internet to their services as an add on.

MOD NOTE: Thread split off from appx here: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=344186#p344186" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[apvbguy]

It wasn't AOL. It was Clinton opening the internet to commercial use. The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank. It was used only by Universities working on government projects and government contractors working on the same projects for years until Clinton decided to open it up during his run for his second term. AOL's cheap dial up connections was for their "on line service" not the internet. COMPUSERVE was another of those "on line service". AOL added internet to their services as an add on.

wasn't it Al Gore who invented the "modern" internet?

 

[WetEV]

wasn't it Al Gore who invented the "modern" internet?

Misleading, out of context distortions never die. They just get repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Snopes says false:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Al Gore did write the law to fund the development of NCSA Mosaic, among other things. The first widely used web browser.

Vint Cerf responded to MSNBC's questions about the Net's origins with this e-mail:
VP Gore was the first or surely among the first of the members of Congress to become a strong supporter of advanced networking while he served as Senator. As far back as 1986, he was holding hearings on this subject (supercomputing, fiber networks...) and asking about their promise and what could be done to realize them. Bob Kahn, with whom I worked to develop the Internet design in 1973, participated in several hearings held by then-Senator Gore and I recall that Bob introduced the term ``information infrastructure'' in one hearing in 1986. It was clear that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it.

As Senator, VP Gore was highly supportive of the research community's efforts to explore new networking capabilities and to extend access to supercomputers by way of NSFNET and its successors, the High Performance Computing and Communication program (which included the National Research and Education Network initiative), and as Vice President, he has been very responsive to recommendations made, for example, by the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee that endorsed additional research funding for next generation fundamental research in software and related topics. If you look at the last 30-35 years of network development, you'll find many people who have made major contributions without which the Internet would not be the vibrant, growing and exciting thing it is today. The creation of a new information infrastructure requires the willing efforts of thousands if not millions of participants and we've seen leadership from many quarters, all of it needed, to move the Internet towards increased availability and utility around the world.

While it is not accurate to say that VP Gore invented Internet, he has played a powerful role in policy terms that has supported its continued growth and application, for which we should be thankful.

We're fortunate to have senior level members of Congress and the Administration who embrace new technology and have the vision to see how it can be put to work for national and global benefit.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000125065813/http://www.mids.org/mn/904/vcerf.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(Edit: fixed quoting)

 

[apvbguy]

wasn't it Al Gore who invented the "modern" internet?

Misleading, out of context distortions never die. They just get repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Snopes says false:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Al Gore did write the law to fund the development of NCSA Mosaic, among other things. The first widely used web browser.

whatever, from the snopes article you referred to, "I took the initiative in creating the internet", here is a blast for you, it isn't too much of distortion to say that he claimed to have invented the internet. EITHER CLAIM IS MOST IDIOTIC.

thanks for playing

 

[WetEV]

whatever, from the snopes article you referred to, "I took the initiative in creating the internet", here is a blast for you, it isn't too much of distortion to say that he claimed to have invented the internet.

Al Gore had a clue about the Internet, for which you wish to attack him for somewhat awkwardly claiming well deserved credit.

Having a clue about anything is a rare thing, in Washington DC. Being well informed seems to be a political liability.

Sad.

 

[apvbguy]

whatever, from the snopes article you referred to, "I took the initiative in creating the internet", here is a blast for you, it isn't too much of distortion to say that he claimed to have invented the internet.

Al Gore had a clue about the Internet, for which you wish to attack him for somewhat awkwardly claiming well deserved credit.

Having a clue about anything is a rare thing, in Washington DC. Being well informed seems to be a political liability.

Sad.

are you kidding? so what? the guy had a clue about the internet, big friggin deal, do you think that he was the only one who was onto the concept? Gore had little if anything to do with the creation or growth of it

 

[gsleaf]

The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank.

I don't think any one person should get credit for creating the Internet, but if you had to pick one person you could make a strong argument for Douglas Engelbart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. He created the NLS or "oN-Line System" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false in the 60's.

 

[Nubo]

whatever, from the snopes article you referred to, "I took the initiative in creating the internet", here is a blast for you, it isn't too much of distortion to say that he claimed to have invented the internet. EITHER CLAIM IS MOST IDIOTIC.

thanks for playing

It's weak sauce indeed, to take potshots that are based on semantic flaws in someone's choice of phrasing in an extemporaneous speaking situation.

No reasonable person would seriously consider that Gore (as a serious, intelligent and well-educated adult) was claiming to have personally "invented the internet", whose origins and evolution are well-documented and public knowledge.

There are 2 reasons this meme is perpetuated:

1 - by people who have an ideological axe to grind
2 - as a humorous reference by people who appreciate the irony created by the above.

Thanks for playing, indeed.

 

[Stoaty]

I'm not so much interested in who created the internet, but more who has abused it the most by making unsubstantiated claims on the internet about Al Gore's statement and twisting his words into something they were never meant to be.

 

[davewill]

... It was Clinton opening the internet to commercial use. The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank. It was used only by Universities working on government projects and government contractors working on the same projects for years until Clinton decided to open it up during his run for his second term. ...

That timing seems strange. I distinctly remember paying for a Netcom shell account back in 1989-90. You definitely did not have to be a government contractor. I remember running Mosaic on Windows 3.1 connecting via an IP masquerade app on that shell account later on. All at a blazing 9600bps! :shock: It was...the future!

 

[apvbguy]

... It was Clinton opening the internet to commercial use. The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank. It was used only by Universities working on government projects and government contractors working on the same projects for years until Clinton decided to open it up during his run for his second term. ...

That timing seems strange. I distinctly remember paying for a Netcom shell account back in 1989-90. You definitely did not have to be a government contractor. I remember running Mosaic on Windows 3.1 connecting via an IP masquerade app on that shell account later on. All at a blazing 9600bps! :shock: It was...the future!

the usenet groups and services like compuserve, genie, and others were around long before the WWW

 

[JimSouCal]

... It was Clinton opening the internet to commercial use. The Internet was first created in the 70s by a military think tank. It was used only by Universities working on government projects and government contractors working on the same projects for years until Clinton decided to open it up during his run for his second term. ...

That timing seems strange. I distinctly remember paying for a Netcom shell account back in 1989-90. You definitely did not have to be a government contractor. I remember running Mosaic on Windows 3.1 connecting via an IP masquerade app on that shell account later on. All at a blazing 9600bps! :shock: It was...the future!

the usenet groups and services like compuserve, genie, and others were around long before the WWW

Yes, and access to SABRE for airplane flights. I have my old printed genie manual around somewhere...

 

[planet4ever]

I'm pretty sure IBM had a world wide intranet by the end of the 1970's. It included email, forums (like this one) and the ability to ship arbitrary files of any size. I remember using it heavily about 1980 to work with a group in England. No HTML, of course, or even Gopher. It had one feature that everyone would love. If you sent an email or file to someone, then changed your mind, you could pull it back if they hadn't read it yet!

Ray

P.S. I checked Wikipedia to see if it had something about this. Indeed it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_VNET" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And it looks like my memory was spot on for once:

By September 1979, the network had grown to include 285 mainframe nodes in Europe, Asia and North America.

Since virtually all IBMers in technical positions had terminal access to at least one of those mainframes, it really was a (nearly) worldwide network.

 

[WetEV]

I'm pretty sure IBM had a world wide intranet by the end of the 1970's. It included email, forums (like this one) and the ability to ship arbitrary files of any size. I remember using it heavily about 1980 to work with a group in England. No HTML, of course, or even Gopher. It had one feature that everyone would love. If you sent an email or file to someone, then changed your mind, you could pull it back if they hadn't read it yet!

Ray

As did Digital Equipment Corporation, aka "Digital" some places and "DEC" other places.

 

[TEG]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;