Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
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Field

Computer Networking

Also Known As Data Communications
Networks

Computer Networking studies how separate computers exchange information: the protocols, addressing schemes and physical media that let one machine's data reach another, and eventually let millions of machines reach each other as a single internetwork. The field grew directly out of ARPANET, the US Advanced Research Projects Agency's experimental packet switched network, and its central concept, packet switching itself, breaking a message into independently routed pieces, was developed in the early 1960s by Paul Baran in the United States and, independently, Donald Davies in the United Kingdom.

Facts
Origin Year
1969 1
The year ARPANET's first node went live at UCLA, commonly treated as the field's practical starting point, though the packet switching theory behind it dates to the early 1960s.
Core Concern
How separate computers exchange information reliably, and how many networks are joined into one internetwork. 2
Connections

Associated With

Scott Shenker, Pioneers
Source Wikipedia: Scott Shenker
Vint Cerf, Pioneers

Vint Cerf co-designed the TCP/IP protocols with Robert Kahn, work recognized by the ACM Turing Award citation for pioneering internetworking, foundational to computer networking as a field.

Source Wikipedia: Vint Cerf
Web Science, Fields

Includes

ARPANET, Systems
Source Computer History Museum
Bluetooth, Systems
Client-Server Model, Concepts
Source Wikipedia: Client-server model
Domain Name System, Systems
Source Wikipedia: Domain Name System
Ethernet, Systems
HTTP, Systems
IEEE 802.11, Systems
Packet Switching, Concepts
Radia Perlman, Pioneers
Source Wikipedia: Radia Perlman
SMTP, Systems
SSH, Systems
TCP/IP, Systems
The Internet, Systems
Source Computer History Museum
Tim Berners-Lee, Pioneers
Source ACM A.M. Turing Award Citations
Vint Cerf, Pioneers
World Wide Web, Systems
Source ACM A.M. Turing Award Citations
Sources
1. Computer History Museum
Computer History Museum
  • Quote
    In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET. And the ARPANET was without form and void.
  • Networking history
    By 1992, when this timeline ends, the Internet has one million hosts.
View the Source
2. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
IEEE Computer Society, 1979View the Source
ACM A.M. Turing Award Citations
Association for Computing Machinery
  • Includes: Tim Berners-Lee
  • Includes: World Wide Web
View the Source
Wikipedia: Domain Name System
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Domain Name SystemView the Source
Wikipedia: Vint Cerf
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Vint CerfView the Source
Wikipedia: Client-server model
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Client-Server Model, History sectionView the Source
Wikipedia: Scott Shenker
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Scott Shenker, Biography section
Quote, Associated With: Scott Shenker, Biography section
Shenker is a leader in the movement toward software-defined networking (SDN).
View the Source
Wikipedia: Radia Perlman
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Radia Perlman, career section
Quote, Includes: Radia Perlman, career section
While working for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1984 she was tasked with developing a straightforward protocol that enabled network bridges to locate loops in a local area network (LAN).
View the Source
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