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Full Version: ARPANET: A Primitive Precursor to the Internet
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Most people around the globe are connected to a global network called the internet. But as I read today, its precursor was the Advanced Research Project Agency Network or ARPANET, which began as a way of sharing information between computers at universities and research laboratories in 1969. It was made fully operational in 1975.

The internet is the end product of decades of research and thinking about network technologies. Like the information superhighway that it is, it uses a "connector" or router to connect each individual computer to a local area network or LAN, which then connects to a wide area network or WAN. The Transmission Control Protocol assigns a number to each "packet" of data which may pass through a communication line such as a high speed cable or fiber optics line (which uses light rather than electricity to send data from computer to network).

The TCP solves the problem of data collision through breaking data up into packets and assigning a number to each packet, which is then reassembled when it reaches its destination (another computer).

The IP (Internet protocol) is a number or address assigned to the destination (another computer).

This concludes the fascinating history of the information superhighway.