Cobra Party Pictures

The following "History of the internet" is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to filesharing, from ARPANET to Internet.

The history is told using the PICOL icons on picol.org , which are available for download soon. On this blog.picol.org you can get news about this project.

In brief 'the history of the Internet' began with the ARPANET and connected mainframe computers on dedicated connections. The second stage involved adding desktop PCs which connected through telephone wires. The third stage was adding wireless connections to laptop computers. And currently the Internet is evolving to allow mobile phone Internet connectivity ubiquitously using cellular networks.

Further, with the enactment of High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (HPCA, Pub.L. 102-194, enacted 1991-12-09) of Congress created and introduced by then Senator Al Gore (it was thus referred to as the Gore Bill) resulted in the development of the National Research and Education Network (NREN) (which was referred to as the Information Superhighway). It also led to the development of the National Information Infrastructure ( Information Superhighway), the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative (an off-shoot of the HPCA), the web browser Mosaic, and the creation of a high-speed fiber optic network.

Following the commercialisation and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations also led to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow and prosper.