THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603190445
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Long before talk of a peace dividend, when the United States was at war in Vietnam, some bright scientists and technicians at the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency created a communications network designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
It was 1969. And the seeds of the Internet - that vast on-line computer world of entertainment, information and conversation that is revolutionizing communications in the 1990s - were planted.
Gradually, federal labs and universities latched on. By the late 1980s, the Internet - so named because it is an interconnected network of computer networks - was well known to professors, scientists and computer zealots all over the world.
Users exchanged electronic mail, participated in on-line discussion groups and tapped into databases filled with information about research in their fields.
But the real boom in Internet interest can be traced back to just a few years ago. Computer whizzes at places like the University of Illinois developed software programs that let people simply point and click their way to information they wanted via a new part of the Internet called the World Wide Web.
Before long, businesses were erecting colorful ``homepages'' on the Web that were crammed with photos, graphics and text. Some started selling products and services. Others used it to describe themselves to potential customers.
Soon, sound clips and video clips were spliced in - and the pages became more elaborate and entertaining. Magazines, newspapers and TV stations erected sites. Advertisers started popping up on some of their pages. Internet-access companies proliferated to help individuals who didn't have access through the military, universities or research labs get connected to the network. The big on-line services even built back doors out of their private networks to access the Internet.
As the number of Internet sites grew into the millions, directories like Lycos and Yahoo! were created by clever software designers to help people find what they were looking for. And snappy point-and-click software programs like Netscape were introduced to make traveling from one site to another even easier.
Today, an estimated 30 million people worldwide - give or take 10 million - use the Internet.
Most amazing about all of this is that no one truly owns the Internet. It is a network of networks patched together by phone lines. The closest thing to a governing body is a volunteer group called the Internet Society, in Reston, that facilitates the development of standards for the network.
And the Johnny Appleseeds at the Pentagon who started it all don't get one red cent in royalties for their important effort. FOR MORE INFORMATION. . . .
A good way to start learning about the Internet is to attend meetings of the Hampton Roads Internet Association. The group meets the third Thursday of every month, beginning at 6:30 p.m., in the main auditorium at the Virginia Beach Central Library on Virginia Beach Boulevard near Loehmann's Plaza. The first half-hour of the meeting is devoted to beginners' issues. The main program starts at 7 p.m. The next meeting is March 21 and is open to the public.
The HRIA's Internet homepage can be found at:
http://www.exis.net/hria/hria.htm ILLUSTRATION: [John Corbitt]
by CNB