Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Spartacist]

I hate to say it, but he's right

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/who_invented_the_internet_the_outrageous_conservative_claim_that_every_tech_innovation_came_from_private_enterprise_.html

Sometimes the government can do things right.

[Kuros]

Its more complicated than that. Yes, the gov't played a role in the development of the internet. But academia played a big role. And so did commercial providers. There was no single lineal process or any one moment of invention for the internet. Like every other technological advance, it came about through a highly iterative process and through an incremental series of innovations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#Networks_that_led_to_the_Internet

[luckylady]

(not reading the links first so sorry if this is repeated)

the way the story was told to me - by those who were involved in the early days - the original concept was developed and implemented by the CIA and military intelligence.

the idea was that if nuclear war broke out (can you believe people honestly ever thought such an event was survivable?) there needed to be a way to communicate that was uninterruptable. the concept of a physical web structure was initiated that if one "spoke" failed, the others could still communicate with each other and hence, communication could still take place.

academia was involved as part of the communication process and began using the web for sharing research resources and then discussions and well, everything took off from there (the rest is history).

another tidbit you might not have heard: computer games were initially developed by the military to initiate soldiers into using high-tek computers for war and other military applications, i.e., not to be afraid of computers. many of you might recall in the early years before there was a desktop on every desk, many people, especially professionals of a certain age, were reluctant even antagnonistic towards computers.

one of ther reasons microsoft packaged solitaire and other simple games on their original computers was specifically for this reason - so people would learn how to use the mouse and become more comfortable with using the computer in general.

[Steelrails]

I think internet porn did a great job of teaching many people how to use a mouse and overcome their fear of computers. Seriously.

But come on now, I thought Al Gore invented the internet.

[JustinC]

Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (born 8 June 1955), also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web.

[luckylady]

[young_clinton]

Another government inception with defensive purposes in mind - the Interstate Highways.

[jammo]

[Steelrails]

[luckylady]

[sml7285]

[rollo]

Berners-Lee made the net accessable and easily usable but he did not invent the internet. What he did was amazing enough, it opened the doors to the computer revolution. The U.S. military had a net for a long time before the ninties but it was only usable by programmers and engineers.

yeah government does some nifty stuff, like T.V.A which brought electricity to the rural South and also helped control devastating yearly flooding. One of the major reason the "sun belt 'boomed in the 60's was the TVA projects.

[JustinC]