[ih] History from 1960s to 2025

[Karl Auerbach]

Wow, you ask a hard question.

We each have our own views of what happened.  It is probably safe to 
assert that no one had a synoptic view, much less had a clear vision of 
where things were going to end up.

Several years ago my wife and I came across some really awful materials 
about the development of the internet.  We realized that we had a rather 
deeper knowledge of things, and a fair web of contacts with people who 
did things.

We (my wife and I) are both aspiring story tellers.  (We have both 
worked in theatre and remain active supporters of the performing arts.)  
So we took a leap - despite a lack of knowledge about "how to do it" we 
bought cameras, microphones, editing tools, etc and we set forth to 
collect interviews.  We have learned how much we did not know about 
making videos and recording voice.  And we have learned even more about 
how much we don't know about how the Internet came to be.

We did not, and still do not, want to make a history of technology.  Our 
interest is in the process of creation and invention, and not always of 
ideas that succeeded - failure is as much a part of the story we want to 
tell.  We are intrigued by how ideas strive and compete for the light, 
some successfully, some not.  And we are intrigued by the emotional ride 
- the joys, the pains, even the tears - that happened along the way.  In 
other words, our interest is in people, not so much in technology.  (One 
of my personal goals is to express to younger generations that the 
Internet is not complete - that newcomers can add to the edifice. I also 
want to illuminate the many people who are largely overlooked - I have 
in my mind's eye how Lauren Gunderson illuminated the work of Henrietta 
Swan Leavit in Gunderson's wonderful work "Silent Sky".)

At the moment we have only a dozen or so interviews - some are quite 
long (I think one is something like six hours!!) We got distracted a few 
years ago, so we have not done much recently, and our raw materials are 
mostly still in the form of raw, unedited takes (with copies in several 
locations.)  We have noticed that over the last few years that people 
have become far more reluctant to do interviews.

Our intent was to edit that mass of material down into "our version" of 
the story.

But we know that others have different versions.

We plan to make the raw materials available to all - that is to all 
except those we consider commercial hacks (we use a creative commons 
license that allows attributed non-commercial use - we would create 
specific licenses for those commercial users with whom we feel 
comfortable. At least one person we interviewed has required that we use 
and republish his material under a public domain dedication.  And in at 
least one case we have been requested to not publish some of that 
person's statements until after that person's death.)

We did create a few videos - mostly to show ourselves how much we have 
to learn about making documentary materials.  To put it mildly, our 
videos are sometimes technically quite bad.

We did not want to tell a grand monumental story; rather we want to 
speak in short - five to seven minute - episodes that focus on a 
specific point.  Our roadmap projected more than 250 videos!!

What little we have published is up on the web.  And we say quite 
clearly that we are biased, that we are telling our point of view and 
that others will have quite different perceptions.  Kurosawa's film 
"Roshomon" is our model that "truth" is often quite subjective.

Here's the URL to our series introduction (and to the website in 
total).  As you will see, we have not published very much (I think we 
have published only four videos so far), and as technical efforts, our 
videos reflect that we are learning our way and making plenty of mistakes.

I do not know if we have the energy to resume doing interviews and 
telling the story.  But if we don't someone else will, and almost 
certainly with less awareness of the personal and emotional aspirations, 
efforts, and costs.

https://www.history-of-the-internet.org/videos/series-intro/

         --karl--


On 12/17/25 2:17 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote
> The January/February 2026 issue of Foreign Affairs contains an article 
> titled "How China Wins The Future".  Part of it discusses the Internet 
> (section titled "Hardwire and Hard Power"), and their initiatives to 
> create a replacement for TCP/IP and deploy the new technology of "New 
> IP", to solve the perceived problem that today's Internet won't meet 
> the needs of the future.
>
> This reminded me of the efforts in the 1960s/70s which created the 
> Internet, with TCP serving as the mechanism to solve the problem of 
> how to interconnect the numerous different kinds of networks that were 
> popping up all over.
>
> While the future is interesting to discuss and debate, this list is 
> about History.  I'm curious about what people think about how we got 
> from the 1960s to 2026.
>
> Here's my thoughts -- based of course only on my personal experience.  
> I'd love to know what I got wrong or missed.
>
> - 1960s: Licklider creates his vision of Intergalactic Network; ARPA 
> creates the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), which 
> initiates the creation of ARPANET.
>
> - 1970s: ARPANET expanded; additional network mechanisms developed 
> (SATNET), need for interconnectivity among disjoint networks motivates 
> creation of TCP; ARPANET expands rapidly.
>
> - 1980s: TCP implemented in multiple systems; US DoD declares it as a 
> Standard and requires it to be present in military procurements; NBS 
> (NIST) creates program to certify implementations; government efforts 
> drive existing network (ARPANET) and all host systems to be converted 
> from NCP to TCP on 1/1/1983; NSF expands use of Internet into 
> non-military environments, and fosters the creation of the first 
> self-supporting Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
>
> - 1980s: LANs become pervasive; workstations and PCs emerge as 
> alternatives to older mainframe systems; notion of "an internet" 
> becomes popular; multiple companies (Novell, Xerox, IBM, Banyan, DEC, 
> ...) create their own architectures, incompatible with others.  OSI 
> continues to define yet another architecture intended to become a 
> worldwide standard; ISPs proliferate.
>
> - 1980s: US government embraces COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) 
> policy, which encourages the development of commercial products for 
> use in the TCP environment;  corporate representatives from tech 
> companies begin to participate in Internet technology development and 
> standardization efforts (IETF); DoD limits funding of custom systems 
> and research in favor of using commercial products
>
> - 1990s: Commercial users, and the public, get tired of waiting for 
> the internet wars to end, notice that TCP technology is available, can 
> be observed to work, and can solve their immediate IT problems; the 
> TCP Internet grows rapidly in the general public worldwide; 
> corporations deploy private "intranets" using TCP products; all 
> competing internet architectures fade into oblivion
>
> - 1990s: next generation protocol (IP V6) developed to address 
> limitations of older TCP architecture; draft standard for next 
> generation TCP (V6) created in 1998
>
> - 1990s?: technology development efforts abandon the role of 
> orchestrating replacement of old technology "in the field" with newer 
> versions that remove vulnerabilities or introduce additional 
> functionality.  Technologies in the Internet are now developed, and 
> "standardized", and then "put on the shelf" for others to find and use
>
> - 2017: full standard for next generation TCP (V6) defined; 
> implementations are in use, but many systems continue to use older TCP 
> (V4)
>
> - 2026: after 30+ years, existing Internet has not yet successfully 
> supplanted old V4 TCP with slightly newer V6 TCP; many unsolved issues 
> remain in areas of concern, such as spam, cybercrime, identity theft, 
> intellectual property protection, "phishing", and others, not 
> addressed even by the newer V6 architecture; US, EU, and other 
> governments seem to avoid involvement in researching or orchestrating 
> further technology development to counter such problems.   Corporate 
> efforts seem to be continuing to create competing "silos" of 
> technology, hoping to be the winner in the marketplace.
>
> - 2026: China creates initiative to define a "New IP" to meet the 
> needs of the future; begins deployment of associated new technology in 
> countries which have embraced the initiative.
>
> Your thoughts?
> /Jack Haverty
>
>
>