ARPANET CHANGES TO TCP/IP CREATING THE INTERNET

Today, The Grandma has been reading about ARPANET, that officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet, on a day like today in 1983.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite.

Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.

Building on the ideas of J. C. R. Licklider, Bob Taylor initiated the ARPANET project in 1966 to enable resource sharing between remote computers. Taylor appointed Larry Roberts as program manager. Roberts made the key decisions about the request for proposal to build the network. He incorporated Donald Davies' concepts and designs for packet switching, and sought input from Paul Baran on dynamic routing.

In 1969, ARPA awarded the contract to build the Interface Message Processors (IMPs) for the network to Bolt Beranek & Newman (BBN). The design was led by Bob Kahn who developed the first protocol for the network. Roberts engaged Leonard Kleinrock at UCLA to develop mathematical methods for analyzing the packet network technology.

The first computers were connected in 1969 and the Network Control Protocol was implemented in 1970, development of which was led by Steve Crocker at UCLA and other graduate students, including Jon Postel and others. The network was declared operational in 1971. Further software development enabled remote login and file transfer, which was used to provide an early form of email. The network expanded rapidly and operational control passed to the Defense Communications Agency in 1975.

Bob Kahn moved to DARPA and, together with Vint Cerf at Stanford University, formulated the Transmission Control Program for internetworking. As this work progressed, a protocol was developed by which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks; this incorporated concepts pioneered in the French CYCLADES project directed by Louis Pouzin. Version 4 of TCP/IP was installed in the ARPANET for production use in January 1983 after the Department of Defense made it standard for all military computer networking.

Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In the early 1980s, the NSF funded the establishment of national supercomputing centers at several universities and provided network access and network interconnectivity with the NSFNET project in 1986.

The ARPANET was formally decommissioned in 1990, after partnerships with the telecommunication and computer industry had assured private sector expansion and commercialization of an expanded worldwide network, known as the Internet.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.

IP has the task of delivering packets from the source host to the destination host solely based on the IP addresses in the packet headers. For this purpose, IP defines packet structures that encapsulate the data to be delivered. It also defines addressing methods that are used to label the datagram with source and destination information. 

IP was the connectionless datagram service in the original Transmission Control Program introduced by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974, which was complemented by a connection-oriented service that became the basis for the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The Internet protocol suite is therefore often referred to as TCP/IP.

The first major version of IP, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), is the dominant protocol of the Internet. Its successor is Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which has been in increasing deployment on the public Internet since around 2006.

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. 

The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, and file sharing.

More information: Tech Target

The Internet gave us access to everything;
but it also gave everything access to us.

James Veitch

WXYC, THE WORLD'S FIRST INTERNET RADIO BROADCAST

Today, The Grandma has been listening to the radio. She loves it, and she has chosen one of her favourite, the WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that launched the world's first internet radio broadcast.

WXYC (89.3 FM) is an American radio station broadcasting a college radio format. Licensed to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States, the station is run by students of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The station is owned by Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc. The station operates with an effective radiated power of 1,100 Watts from an antenna height above average terrain of 147 meters.

The station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its signal has been simulcast on the Internet by ibiblio since November 1994 and is credited as having performed the first Internet radio broadcast in the world.

It can also be found on iTunes, where, based on listener feedback, it would appear to enjoy some popularity in the UK and the American Northeast among Internet listeners.

The station is known for an eclectic variety of content, including: jazz, blues, rock, hip hop, zydeco, metal, electronic music, folk music, bluegrass, country, traditional Asian music, traditional African music, calypso, samba, tejano, mariachi, Latin American music, funk, electroclash, synthpop, pop, cajun, doo wop, reggae, dance hall, classical, classic rock, and almost any other type of music.

More information: WXYC

There is a stated emphasis on music from the 20th century onwards, as opposed to classical, though classical music is played from time to time. Furthermore, there is a conscious attempt to give artists from North Carolina, especially the greater Chapel Hill area, more air time, but local artists do not dominate the content.

There are also speciality talk shows that highlight sports, news, and student government at UNC. Speciality music shows exhibit material from UNC's Southern Folklife Collection, music usually considered too erratic, abrasive, or lengthy for regular radio play, even by WXYC's permissive standards, local music, newly released music, and electronic/dance. Additionally, every Thursday night, there is a three-hour theme show.

The theme of this show changes every week, but a few examples include: songs about chickens, music from Mexico, swing music from occupied Europe, the northern England electronic scene, batucada, music performed by convicted criminals, and Carolina Soul of the 1960s through 1980s.

WXYC's offices and studios are located in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union on the campus of the University of North Carolina.

WXYC's transmitter is located on Jones Ferry Road in Chatham County, North Carolina.

WXYC is known for putting on dances throughout the year with various themes, including the 80s, the early 1990s, and the best music released in the past year.

Prior to 1977, WXYC was a carrier current AM station known as WCAR.

Until 1970, several UNC residence colleges had their own carrier current stations. Morrison Dormitory had WMO, Ehringhaus had WSTD, Granville Towers had WILD and Hinton James also had its own station.

In the fall of 1969, Hinton James joined Ehringhaus to form WRSC (Radio South Campus). Meanwhile, Morrison and Granville Towers formed WCAR which broadcast from the basement of Granville West.

In January 1970, all of these stations consolidated into WCAR. The WCAR studios were located in the basement of Ehringhaus Dormitory and broadcast to every other dorm via AM frequency 550 kHz. The management of WCAR planned to upgrade the service with the hope of eventually getting an FM licence from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At that time, it was anticipated that the station would serve as a training ground for future broadcasters and not act solely an outlet for, what was called at the time, progressive rock.

In order to achieve their ambitious plans, many WCAR staff members ran for Student Legislature (SL).

More information: Facebook-WXYC

In 1972, a running joke around campus was that the SL was made up of three parties, the liberals, the conservatives, and WCAR. Through the shrewd use of political power, WCAR was allocated the funds necessary to move its studios and offices to the Frank Porter Graham Student Union in 1973.

UNC students Jim Srebro, Gary Rendsburg, Jim Bond, Bob Heymann, Randy Wolfe, Monte Plott, and George Frye were all instrumental in the upgrading of facilities and doing the preliminary engineering and legal work in order to be licensed as an FM station.

A student referendum was held in 1973 to allocate the necessary funds to formally apply for and build an FM station. Through the work of WCAR volunteers, the referendum passed.

In 1974, WCAR received its construction permit from the FCC to begin building its FM station. When the UNC Administration realized that this new FM station would be licensed with over 10,000 Watts of power and therefore could be clearly heard in Raleigh and by members of the North Carolina General Assembly, it pulled its support for the entire project. The FCC subsequently cancelled the construction permit.

More information: Twitter-WXYC

In response, WCAR's management formed a not-for-profit corporation, Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc., which would become the new licensee of WXYC. 

Jim Srebro served as the first Chairman of Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc. In the intervening time, however, other new FM stations were licensed by the FCC in North Carolina, which limited WXYC to only 400 Watts of power when it went on the air in March 1977.

In 2009 the station relocated its transmitter facilities and increased power to 1,100 Watts.

In 1994, WXYC disc jockey Michael Shoffner set up the station's Internet radio broadcast, which runs to this day and is widely considered to be the first such broadcast.

North Carolina Public Radio (WUNC) is also affiliated with the university.

More information: Instagram-WXYC

Radio is the most intimate and socially personal medium in the world.

Harry von Zell