What we know today as the World Wide Web has substantially changed since it’s beginnings as a radar safety system after World War II.
After the second world war, nuclear technologies were developed to destroy the world multiple times over. The United States Military along with researchers at MIT developed radar networks as a safety system to protect the nation in the event of a bombing attack by plane. The radar system tracked the blip of the plane, allowing for a missile to be fired towards it to effectively stop any chance of attack. However, the radar system’s safety net was short lived after the Russians satellite Sputnik 1 was sent into space in 1957. The satellite suggested that if you can put people into space you can put weapons into space. This is just one essential aspect of the internet’s history.
Jumping further forward, to what really stuck with me from Hugh’s lecture today, was the development of the World Wide Web by Tim Burner’s Lee in 1989. Web 1.0 was able to be developed as the HTML language and an inter-network existed, along with enough computers. The number of computers, predominately in homes, which existed relied heavily on Bill Gates’ Microsoft Windows and Steve Job’s MacIntosh products. Where Bill Gates opened the idea of new innovative work of the future, Steve Jobs had successfully paired poor graphics with emotive music to create the concept that computers are personal. The internet was essentially given out to the public from the business, academic and military areas it had served until this time.
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