Ronda Hauben on Tue, 2 May 2000 17:05:20 +0200 (CEST) |
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[Nettime-bold] The Birth of the Internet: the Architectural Conception |
Draft for Comment The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem by Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt Abstract The Internet makes it possible to transmit a message across the boundaries of dissimilar networks. What is the architectural conception that makes such internetwork communication possible? TCP/IP is a communications protocol. What are the foundations that it is built upon? What does it mean to be a communications protocol? This draft paper explores these questions and connects them to the conceptual foundations of communications engineering and communications science, as developed by Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener and others. The ARPANET and then the Internet are developments that contribute a new body of communications experience and knowledge to that which has been developed in the past as part of communications engineering. This context makes it possible to understand what it means that the computer is a communications device, and a very general one at that. And this context makes it possible to understand the nature of the Internet as a new conception which builds on the experience and research done developing the ARPANET. Ronda ronda@panix.com _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold