A Brief History of Networking

Nowadays computer networks are so widespread in society it easy to forget how these networks emerged and why we needed them. The first computers were "mainframes", basically very large, expensive centralised computers. These mainframes contained the operating system and applications and could be accessed using "dumb terminals" ( a dumb terminal is simply a device that connects to a computer system using perhaps a keyboard and monitor but has little or no processing power of its own - therefore it is dumb!)

This early type of computer network actually had some advantages - hence this type of network is still used in some corporate environments, however the disadvantages included the fact that the mainframe manufacturers locked users into proprietary solutions for hardware, software and operating systems, at this point in time there were no "universal solutions" with cross compatible software or applications, software written by one manufacturer for a mainframe computer would not run on a different computer and even the hardware such as disc drives, memory and connectors were unique to each manufacturer! in addition, this type of early network was not "scalable" as all users were sharing the same processor in the mainframe this created a bottleneck in the network, the only workaround was to install processor upgrades or additional mainframes - both of these solutions were prohibitively expensive.

The development that really drove modern networking technology was the PC revolution in the 1980's. The hardware technology was open so any manufacturer could build PC's so for the first time new operating systems were available that were not manufacturer dependant which opened up a huge marketplace to independent software/application developers. new applications such as Lotus 1.2.3, Wordstar and Dbase started to hit the marketplace offering greater functionality, easier to use interfaces and greatly reduced prices. With this new technology it was no longer necessary to rely on a single processor in a mainframe, each user could have their own processing power with a dedicated processor in their own machine.

There was a downside to this new technology however, without a mainframe controlling all the resources each user would need their own hardware resources such as printers, fax, hard drives etc. This was expensive for corporations as often these local resources were under utilised. Sharing data was time consuming and laborious also, it usually entailed copying data to floppy disks and transferring to another machine. It became obvious that there needed to be some method of sharing resources and data effectively between large numbers of computers that could not operate within the traditional mainframe environment.

The development of LAN's (Local Area Networks) came from a clear need to connect large numbers of computers together and provide means of sharing
resources and data in a secure environment. The LAN effectively brought together the technologies of PC's, together with the proven benefits of mainframes. Essentially PC's could be interconnected and one Pc, running a special operating system called a Network Operating System, could take the place of the mainframe computer and become a network server. In the early days these special network operating systems included Novell Netware and Microsoft LAN Manager.

Users could now continue to work at their won computers but could also request services from the network server as required, the difference being that as each computer has its own processing power and is not a dumb terminal, there was no longer a mainframe bottleneck created. These LAN's became very popular in both the corporate and academic worlds as methods of joining large numbers of computer users in the same location to a single network with all the associated benefits of file and resource sharing along with security, but what if users in different locations required access to these network resources? Perhaps major companies with offices in different locations around the country or even universities wanting to share research with a completely different campus?

The development of Wide are networks (WAN's) had been developing since the 1960's and was to provide the final piece of the puzzle, developed as a way of connecting military, academic and government computers in the USA, this form of networking involved the connection of individual LAN's to other systems across great distances. Using telecommunication links including dial u p telephone lines, leased lines and ISDN (integrated services digital network) lines to allow data transmission between pairs of systems across huge distances. Wide area networking is the core technology of what we now call the internet.

The modern internet is essentially a network of networks! LAN's and WAN's connected together globally using standard rules for communication making it easy for computer users to connect to networks all over the globe, allowing staff working from home to share company resources, enabling individual users to connect to public resources on other networks ( such as Google or Wikipedia), providing secure Ecommerce and much, much more.