From petroglyphs to ARPANET: information exchange throughout history
When I set out to write a post about computer networks, the part of me that wants to understand everything about everything sent me down a bunch of what and why rabbit holes. Why were computer networks invented? What was the motivation to first build the ARPANET? ARPANET used packet switching, which was invented to replace circuit switching, but what was circuit switching used for and how was that invented? What came before that, and before that, and before that? I kept asking these questions until I found myself asking ChatGPT about how information exchanged happened all the way back in the Paleolithic era.
ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet, began in the late 1960s. This is everything that laid the foundation and got us to that point.
4.5 billion years ago:
Earth: Hey
7 million to 200,000 years ago:
Sahelanthropus tchadensis: Hi
Australopithecus afarensis: Hey
Homo habilis: Hey
Homo erectus: Yo
Homo Neandertalensis: Hi
Homo sapiens: Mine
100,000 years ago: Homo sapiens developed more brainpower, better communication and social skills during the cognitive revolution, which helped us share stories, pass down knowledge, work together, and outlast other human-like species.
30,000 years ago: Homo sapiens used cave paintings, petroglyphs and pictograms to document daily life, beliefs, ideas.
5400 years ago (~3400 BCE): Writing systems emerged
3500 years ago (~1500 BCE): Alphabetic writing began
2600 years ago (~550 BCE): The first postal systems were invented
105: Paper was invented in China and modern book format replaced scrolls.
1440: The printing press was invented in Germany and revolutionized the distribution of books and information.
1600s & 1700s: Electricity is discovered given a name. Certain materials are identified as conductors and nonconductors of electrical charges. The first electric capacitor (a device for storing electricity) is developed.
1800s: The first battery is invented. The relationship between electricity and magnetism is confirmed.
1830s: Samuel Morse developed the electrical telegraph and Morse code, enabling nearly instant communication over long distances. Statistically speaking, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was around for this.
1850s: The first transatlantic telegraph cable was completed and used Morse code to transmit text-based communication (as electrical signals over copper wire) from North America to Europe.
Before the telegraph, communication hadn't changed in nearly 4 centuries since the invention of the printing press. It took days, weeks, or even months for messages to be sent across long distances. When the first transatlantic telegraph cable was completed in the late 1850s, messages could be sent from Europe to North America in just minutes.
Just like in the 90s with the internet, excited predictions surfaced about how business and politics would change, how print communication would get wiped out, how our world would become smaller, more interconnected, and world peace would be on its way.
1870s: Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone
1890s: Guglielmo Marconi developed the first practical radio, transmitting wireless signals over long distances.
1920s: Television!
1950s: International phone calls became possible when the first undersea cable designed for voice communication connected North America and Europe across the Atlantic Ocean.
1960s: satellite communication enabled worldwide TV broadcasting and phone calls.
All of these events set the foundation for the innovations that happened from the 1960s onward: ARPANET, email, the World Wide Web, internet, social media, smartphones, the list goes on.
What strikes me as fascinating is that technology and innovation is not a new theme. Exciting developments have been happening throughout all of history, and they've all been necessary to lead us to where we are today -- using 5G internet connectivity and portable smartphones to interact and exchange ideas with people from all corners the world, computational power to build artificial intelligence, biotechnology to personalize healthcare, and self-driving cars and IoT to change the way we live.
Interested in part two?
From ARPANET to TikTok: information exchange throughout history, part II