©Mark Ollig
In 1973, 30-year-old
Vinton Cerf was working in a lab at Stanford University, when Robert Kahn, who
was employed by the US government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), came by to visit.
Kahn discussed DARPA’s
problem in making all the computers on separate packet-switched networks act as
if they were part of one common network.
Five years earlier, both
had seen and been impressed with a futuristic demonstration of a computing
system presented by Douglas C. Englebart.
Engelbart revealed his
concept of a future computer network using NLS, aka The Online System.
In 1957, Engelbart was
doing research at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA.
There, he developed a
working prototype of a futuristic computing system.
In 1968, Engelbart gave a
remarkable presentation of “human-computer networking” during the Fall Computer
Conference in San Francisco, CA.
Engelbart’s demonstration
came to be known as “The Mother of All Demos.”
“A Research Center for
Augmenting Human Intellect” was the title of Engelbart’s presentation.
Engelbart’s computer-based,
interactive, multiconsole display system was fully-operational.
The NLS computer terminal
console was linked via telephone lines to a host computer, located some 30
miles away inside the Stanford Research Institute.
Engelbart wore a headset
with a microphone and was seated at a desk in the middle of the stage.
On the desk sat a computer
terminal console display or CRT (cathode ray tube) connected to a huge video
screen above the stage, facing an audience of approximately 1,000.
Many computing specialists
in attendance curiously watched Engelbart as he typed various commands on a
keyboard, while explaining each demonstration application to be used over a
multi-computing network.
One surprise of the 1968
demo was the handheld “pointing device” Engelbart regularly used to move the
cursor dot on the CRT monitor. It looked like the mouse we commonly use to
maneuver around computer programs.
Yes, Engelbart was using a
mouse.
Five years earlier,
Engelbart developed the first working computer mouse.
When asked, “Why was it
called a mouse?”
Engelbart explained how
someone suggested this name in 1963, because the cord connected to it looked
like a tail, and the wooden handheld device was small.
Engelbart obtained US
Patent 3,541,541 Nov. 17, 1970, for “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display
System.” I have a photo of the patent diagram on my weblog.
Meanwhile, Cerf and Kahn
continued their research and developed the networking protocol layers that
allow today’s internet to operate as it does.
In 1974, Cerf and Kahn
published “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection,” which describes the
details of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).
During 1982, Vinton Cerf
and Robert Kahn’s Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was
used as the official protocol suite over the Advanced Research Projects Agency
Network (ARPA).
The rest, as they say,
became history; ARPA turned into the internet we use today.
Two weeks ago, Vinton Cerf
spoke at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Hall in Houston, TX.
The, now, 75-year-old Cerf
spoke about the past and future of the internet.
He recalled in 1976, how
he and Kahn completed the final TCP/IP code using Internet Protocol version 4
(IPv4).
IPv4 provides a maximum of
4.3 billion unique IP numerical assignments or addresses for identifying
individual computing devices – think telephone numbers.
IPv4 is a four-decimal,
32-bit binary code.
Four decimal points
separate each of the eight binary bits, which make up the 32 bits of the IPv4
code.
For example, a dotted,
decimal format Internet Protocol (IP) address of 216.27.61.137 when written in
binary code is 11011000.00011011.00111101.10001001.
It was 1976; given the
small number of connection points linked across the existing network, Cerf and
Kahn thought 4.3 billion IP addresses would last a long time.
Of course, they never
envisioned billions of internet domains and the millions of future websites
requiring IP addresses, which would exhaust the supply of IPv4 addresses so
quickly.
By 2011, the IPv4 network
layer protocol addressing scheme had (for the most part) run out of new,
assignable IP addresses.
Luckily, an internet
standards body known as the Internet Engineering Task Force developed IPv6,
which is currently being implemented across the internet to replace IPv4.
There are 128 bits of
address space using IPv6.
IPv6 provides some 340
trillion, trillion, trillion uniquely assignable IP addresses.
This capacity will provide
a nearly limitless pool of unique IP addresses.
Currently, more than 9
million domain names and 23 percent of all networks use IPv6 connectivity.
Cerf has expressed his
concern about hackers taking control of the IoT (Internet of Things) electronic
devices currently being connected to the internet.
He feels IoT software is
not easily upgradable, thus allowing IoT devices to become susceptible of being
accessed by computer hackers.
“We are very vulnerable .
. . no matter how secure you make software, if there is one hole, someone will
find it. We have to write better software,” Cerf warned.
In December 1997, the US
National Medal of Technology was presented to Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn,
for their work establishing and developing the internet.
To check whether your
domain (or other websites) supports IPv6 connectivity, use this handy testing
tool at http://ipv6-test.com.
Douglas Engelbart’s Dec.
9, 1968 demonstration video is now preserved on the Internet Archives at
http://tinyurl.com/1968demo.
