Linking computers together in a big web

It has been a long-standing human ambition to devise a language everyone would speak, gather all information into a huge database, amass a vast library, classify all knowledge, create a world brain, etc., etc.

ARPA, The Advanced Research Projects Agency was part of the U.S. reaction to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957. ARPA was assigned to research how to utilize computers in command and control research. Suddenly the U.S. found itself in a space race where scientific productivity would be enhanced if scientists could share papers and information quickly.

J.C.R. Licklider of MIT envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In August 1962 this was the 'Galactic Network' concept.

The first packet switching network plan was for the ARPANET published in 1967. The first public demonstration of the ARPANET was in 1972 where the initial application was electronic mail.

Early uses of the ARPANET included transferring files from one university to another, as well as being able to perform remote logins and other tasks remotely.

The was proposed in 1974 as a uniform standard independent of the underlying network and computer hardware. From then on, all networks that use the TCP/IP are collectively known as the Internet. The standardization of TCP/IP allows the number of Internet sites and users to grow exponentially.

The shift to a number of independently managed networks meant that a naming scheme had to be introduced. The Domain Name System was invented as a scalable distributed mechanism to addressing nodes on the Internet.

Paul Mockapetris designed DNS in 1984 to solve the problem of keeping track of many new addresses on the Internet. The old method was adding new addresses to a table on a weekly basis. Systems administrators would grab the newest version (via FTP) and update their domain name servers.

The domain name system is designed as a distributed database; it exists on many different name servers around the world, with no one server storing all the information. Because of this, DNS allows for almost unlimited growth.

The nslookup command queries Internet domain servers.

Example:

nslookup is a debugging tool. It permits queries to a nameserver and the retrieval of any of the information known to the DNS system. It is helpful for determining if the server is running correctly and is properly configured, or for querying for information provided by remote servers.

In 1965 Ted Nelson developed the term "hypertext" to describe non-sequential writing that would allow a reader to move independently from text node to text node, regardless of the author's intent of order of presentation. His self-published book Literary Machines explains/diagrams hypertext.

There have been many writers / artists who have experimented with / revolted against the linearity of text. Julio Cortázar : "I just want to explode when forced to read a book from beginning to end like a good child. This business of one word following another needs to be completely reconsidered. The most important thing is to involve the reader as an active participant, an accomplice even." (Hopscotch, 1966)

• 1969 - First ARPANET node at UCLA's Network Measurements Center
• 1970 - ALOHAnet at University of Hawaii. Led way to Ethernet
• 1971 - ARPANET had 15 nodes at places like UCLA, UCSB, Utah, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Stanford, ...
• 1972 - Ray Tomlinson wrote an e-mail program to operate across networks
• 1972 - Public demonstration of the ARPANET
• 1981 - BITNET (Because It's Time NETwork) established
• 1982 - TCP/IP was selected for ARPANET
• 1983 - UNIX machines with built-in TCP/IP developed
• 1984 - DNS introduced
• 1984 - More than 1000 hosts
• 1987 - Over 10,000 Internet hosts available
• 1989 - Over 100,000 hosts available
• 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee at CERN releases "WorldWideWeb" [all one word], the first web browser.

In 1993 Marc Andreessen released free versions of Mosiac, a web client browser with a GUI (graphical user interface). In mid-1994, Mosaic Communications Corp. was officially incorporated in Mountain View, California. Andreesen became the Vice President of Technology of the new company.

On October 13, 1994, Mosaic Netscape was posted for download on the Internet. Within weeks it was the browser of choice for the majority of Web users. It included new HTML tags that allowed Web designers greater control and creativity. Excited designers quickly began incorporating the new tags into their pages. The new tags could only be read by Netscape, so the designers would usually include a note that their pages were best viewed with Netscape and a link to the page where it could be downloaded. This was great advertising for Netscape. It also further grew the Web itself because Web pages became more exciting. http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/andreesen.html

In 1995 Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 1.0, first shipped as an Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95.

We enter a period of "browser wars" 1995 -

One consequence of many client browsers: The struggle for code compatibility

BR_DOM  = (document.getElementById) ? true : false;
BR_NS4  = (document.layers) ? true : false;
BR_IE   = (document.all) ? true : false;
BR_IE4  =  BR_IE && !BR_DOM;
BR_Mac  = (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("Mac") != -1);
BR_IE4M =  BR_IE4 && BR_Mac;
BR_NS6  =  BR_DOM && !BR_IE;

A snapshot of web activity in April 2003 [where "web activity" is defined as interaction with Google]

      

The Semantic Web occurs when everyone is linked together and sharing meaningful information, when web bots can be launched on the web to find the information you're looking for, when machines can locate and evaluate intelligently information on the web, etc.

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler & Ora Lassila The Semantic Web: A New Form of Web Content that is Meaningful to Computers will Unleash a Revolution of New Possibilities, May 17, 2001

A Peek into the ERIC Thesaurus

ERIC - Educational Resources in Context

Thesaurus - List of 'good' words, ontology? jargon?

 

Terrence A. Brooks The Semantic Web, universalist ambition and some lessons from librarianship, July 2002.