LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Internet: Internet Protocol
built 627 days ago
Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many ways. The typical machine/OS combination moved from DEC PDP-10s and PDP-20s, running TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, to PDP-11s and VAXes and Suns running Unix, and in the 1990s to Unix on Intel microcomputers. The Internet's protocols grew more capable, most notably in the move from NCP/IP to TCP/IP in 1982 and the implementation of Domain Name Service in 1983. It was around this time that people began referring to the collection of interconnected networks with ARPANET at its core as "the Internet".
Source:
The Internet evolved as an experimental system during the 1970s and early 1980s. It then flourished after the TCP/IP protocols were made mandatory on the ARPANET and other networks in January 1983; these protocols ... became the standard for many other networks as well. Indeed, the Internet grew so rapidly that the existing mechanisms for associating the names of host computers (e.g. UCLA, USC-ISI) to Internet addresses (known as IP addresses) were about to be stretched beyond acceptable engineering limits. Most of the applications in the Internet referred to the target computers by name. These names had to be translated into Internet addresses before the lower level protocols could be activated to support the application.
Source:
The Internet is named after the Internet Protocol, the standard communications protocol used by every computer on the Internet. The Internet can powerfully leverage your ability to find, manage, and share information. Never before in human history has such a valuable resource been available to so many people at such little cost. You are incredibly lucky.
Source:
In the next ten years, the Internet is expected to be enormously bigger than it is today. It will be more pervasive than the older technologies and penetrate more homes than television and radio programming. Computer chips are now being built that implement the TCP/IP protocols and recently a university announced a two-chip web server. Chips like this are extremely small and cost very little. And they can be put into anything. Many of the devices connected to the Internet will be Internet-enabled appliances (cell phones, fax machines, household appliances, hand-held organizers, digital cameras, etc.) as well as traditional laptop and desktop computers.
Source:
Hardware devices that connect networks in the Internet are called IP routers because they follow the IP protocol when forwarding packets. A router examines the header in each packet that arrives to determine the packet’s destination. The router either delivers the packet to the destination computer across a local network or forwards the packet to another router that is closer to the final destination. Thus, a packet travels from router to router as it passes through the Internet. In some cases, a router can deliver packets across a local area wireless network, allowing desktop and laptop computers to access the Internet without the use of cables or wires. Today’s business and home wireless local area networks (LANs), which operate according to a family of wireless protocols known as Wi-Fi, are fast enough to deliver Internet feeds as quickly as wired LANs.
Source:
[O]ver the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks, such as FidoNet, have remained separate). During the 1990s, it was estimated that the Internet grew by 100% per year, with a brief period of explosive growth in 1996 and 1997.[3] This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Internet Protocol