Today we learned about the beginning of the internet, how it started and some of the important people throughout history whoo contributed to getting the internet to where it is today.
Dr Vannevar Bush was an American scientist who played a key role in creating the earliest ideas that led to the internets development. In 1945, he wrote about a device he wished to create called the memex, saying:
Despite not actually creating the internet, his vision of connected and searchable knowledge inspired later technologies which I'll talk more about. I think this quote is incredible as Dr Bush was someone who had an incredible idea, but didn’t have the means to create it yet.
Douglas Engelbert was a computer pioneer who worked at the Stanford Research Institute. He was the first person to invent the computer mouse, which was revolutionary at the time and still extremely relevant today. It has definitely evolved in design however, as his initial prototype was made out of wood, and used two metal wheels to move the cursor. He also invented the hyperlink, which allowed pieces of information to be linked together.
Ray Tomlinson sent the first ever email in 1971. He was an American computer engineer, who worked on ARPANET, a network which would eventually evolve into the internet. He developed the @ symbol, to make sure the email would be recieved by the intended recipitent.
Tims Berner Lee is a british computer scientist who is the inventor of the World Wide Web. During his time working at CERN, he came up with the idea so researchers could share their information more easily. He created the first web browser, web page and even HTML. This was monumental for the internet and really made it take off, since he decided to keep it non-propietary it meant anyone could use it for free.
Jeffrey Zeldman is an american web designer, who has been referred to as the ‘king of web standards.’ Before Jeffrey, the web was slightly chaotic as websites were not cross compatible across browsers. This sparked his idea to create the first set of web standards, this included things like CSS for layout and browser compliance guidelines.