COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN COMMUNICATION

 History of the Internet

ORIGIN OF THE INTERNET

The history of the Internet dates back to the late 1960s in the United States of America. This was the period when ear of nuclear war was ever present. The Department of Defence, in considering the risks of nuclear war, experimented with, and developed, a communication system that could survive a nuclear attack. The communication system developed was called ARPANet – Advanced Research Project Agency Network.

The network was initially funded by the Department of Defence Agency. The agency also developed the first computers that linked the computer networks at United States military establishments across great distances throughout the country. The experiment was so successful that it was soon extended to organizations and institutions that were related to the Department of Defence.

Later, the National Science Foundation took over the funding of the project as a research support system. The spread of the computer networks later became so wide and fast in the 1980s that it extended to different levels of educational Institutions and organizations. The was also the period when personal computers rapidly became available.

As a result, the networks spread over most of the globe, attracting hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations. It was during this expansion period that ARPANet became known as the Internet. ARPANet may therefore be regarded as the ancestor of the Internet.

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?

Imagine a room filled with many spiders, each spinning its own web. The webs are so interconnected that the spiders can travel freely within this maze. The Internet simply means a global collection of many different types of computers and computer networks that are linked together. Just as a telephone enables you to talk to someone on the other side of the earth who also has a phone, the internet enables a person to sit at his computer

Intranet

Related to the Internet is the Intranet. The Intranet is simply a private version of the Internet. It makes it possible for people within an organization to exchange data using tools of the internet. By so doing, it enables organizations to function efficiently. For example, employees can share resources (such as a printer), establish security measures for dealing with external information. The Intranet, in effect, creates efficiency and better work culture in an organization.

BASIC SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE INTERNET

The following are the basic services provided by the Internet.

i.             Electronic Mail, usually called e-mail.

ii.            Access to the World-Wide-Web (WWW).

iii.           Newsgroups for a variety of news and discussion topics. Newsgroups are public forums devoted to a particular subject.

iv.          Mailing Lists. This service enables people with a shared interest to send messages to each other and hold a group conversation. Mailing lists are usually smaller and smaller than newsgroups.

v.            File transfer from other people using chat. This is called online communication. Online means connected to the computer. By means of this service, you are able to communicate with people live in any part of the world. You do so, in a more immediate way than sending e-mail and waiting for a reply. All you have to do is type on the computer what you want to say and press “Enter” on the keyboard. The other person’s reply will appear immediately on the monitor for you to read. It is like a telephone conversation. The only difference is having to type what you have to say.

What you can find on the internet

It is impossible to list everything one can find on the Internet. They are so many, but a few example are:

                  ·         Libraries around the world.

                  ·         Titles and contents of books, periodicals and magazines.

                  ·         Current News from Newspapers around the world.

                  ·         Sport News.

                  ·         Detailed stock market reports.

                  ·         Weather forecasts.

                  ·         Museums galleries and their collections.

                  ·         Shops and their advertised goods.

                 ·         Pop Music, video images and sound clips, as well as other forms of                          entertainment
      ·       Multimedia broadcasts, video conferences, and wireless communication.

        ·         Information about towns, states and countries.

There is an almost endless list of other things you can find on the Internet, including finding a job and even someone to be your friend. This is, perhaps, why the Internet has been described as an electronic equivalent of a world road system. A road is only useful because of what it links you to – your offices, friends’ houses, shops.