Here’s a conceptual clarification that deconfused me somewhat. – The zeroth instantiation of the internet was the telephone network. The alpha version was when someone first made a modem to let computers send 1s and 0s over the telephone system. And that was it. You had the ability for computers to talk to other ones in different cities.
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A different 0th version was computers hooked up directly to other computers.
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The beta version involved Usenet, emails, etc.
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Finally we get to what people talk about when they say the “invention of the internet” and a web of pages that pointed you to other pages when you clicked on links. I think the reason this gets so much attention is because the previous versions were just immensely less powerful.
For sure. This is actually something that made me curious about the internet writ large. If the WWW was just one thing built on the internet, then why do I get mostly answers for the WWW when I look up history of the internet? (Because the WWW was so useful.) Why did the internet already exist when the WWW came along? (Because it was just the phone lines and some modems.)
Here’s a conceptual clarification that deconfused me somewhat. – The zeroth instantiation of the internet was the telephone network. The alpha version was when someone first made a modem to let computers send 1s and 0s over the telephone system. And that was it. You had the ability for computers to talk to other ones in different cities.
--
A different 0th version was computers hooked up directly to other computers.
--
The beta version involved Usenet, emails, etc.
--
Finally we get to what people talk about when they say the “invention of the internet” and a web of pages that pointed you to other pages when you clicked on links. I think the reason this gets so much attention is because the previous versions were just immensely less powerful.
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There’s so much more about this I wish I knew.
Back in the day (meaning the 90s) people drew a distinction between “the internet” and “the world wide web”.
This distinction is still relevant and useful in some contexts.
For sure. This is actually something that made me curious about the internet writ large. If the WWW was just one thing built on the internet, then why do I get mostly answers for the WWW when I look up history of the internet? (Because the WWW was so useful.) Why did the internet already exist when the WWW came along? (Because it was just the phone lines and some modems.)