Happy 20th birthday to the internet

Transition to TCP/IP took place on 1 January 1983

Nick Farrell

The internet has officially celebrated its 20th birthday.

On 1 January 1983 the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (Arpanet) of the US Department of Defence - the forerunner of the internet - was switched to the TCP/IP protocol.

Advertisement

This enabled millions of computers to go online instead of the Network Control Protocol (NCP) which limited it to just 1,000 machines.

The TCP/IP protocol was designed by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn.

On the mailing list of the Internet Engineering Task Force, internet pioneer Bob Braden wrote: "The most logical date of origin of the internet is 1 January 1983, when the Arpanet officially switched from the NCP protocol to TCP/IP.

"Six months later, the Arpanet was split into the two subnets - Arpanet and Milnet [Military Network] - which were connected by internet gateways.

"There may still be a few remaining T-shirts about that read: 'I Survived the TCP/IP Transition'."

Braden added that some people would be surprised to discover that there were actually a few souls wanting to work on the TCP/IP changeover on 1 January. But they did.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Tags:

Do you agree?

Further reading

Turing Award goes to creators of TCP/IP

Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn receive computing 'Nobel Prize'

History of the internet: Origins of the web

The world wide web is now a part of our everyday lives, but do you know who first thought of it, and how it became the revolutionary technology it is today?

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

Xperia X1

Video Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

First Looks Editor Ian Williams gets hands on with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

iPhone

Video Review: iPhone 3GS

We put Apple's latest iPhone through its paces

IT white papers

Search white papers

Top categories

Poll

Poll: Summer smartphones

Poll: Summer smartphones

Which smartphone will you be taking to the beach this summer?

View poll results

Advertisement

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Spotlight

a padlock

Microsoft to plug security holes

Microsoft has given advance warning of a number of security...

Nokia handset

Top 10 articles, 10 July 09

No Nokia Android phone, ActiveX attacks and Google enters into...

Can Google beat Microsoft at its own game?

Google's announcement this week that it plans to step into...

iPhone

Video Review: iPhone 3GS

We put Apple's latest iPhone through its paces

Primary Navigation