How old…?
It’s not unreasonable for an eighteen year old today to think somewhat fuzzily that the internet’s probably been around as long as he has – but if we turn that into ‘probably been around as long as his dad has‘ you might think we were having a laugh!
Well, not everybody agrees exactly when it started – mainly because not everybody agrees exactly what the internet is (!?!), but there was definitely a strong case for celebrating the internet’s 40th birthday last week.
At 10.30pm on October 29th 1969 (yes – moon landing and Woodstock 1969…) a bunch of professors and students at the University of California remotely accessed their computer to a second computer at the Stanford Research Institute. The SDS Sigma 7 computer was connected to an ‘interface message processor’ which made contact with Stanford’s IMP and thus its connecting computer.
What words were used on such a momentous occasion, you might ask?
Actually, only one was attempted, – the very mundane but appropriate word LOGIN. Ironically, the message didn’t even get as far as the letter G though, and so the very first word in the dawn of a new era was the awesomely embracing term “LO” !
Peace & Love, and HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY WWW !
