The Internet, Past, Present, and Future

Some thirty years ago, the RAND Corporation, America's foremost Cold War think-tank, faced a strange strategic problem. How could the U.S. authorities successfully communicate after a nuclear war? Post-nuclear America would need a command-and-control network, linked from city to city, state to state, base to base. However, no matter how thoroughly that network was armored or protected, its switches and wiring would always be vulnerable to the impact of atomic bombs. A nuclear attack …

…five-year, $2 billion project to upgrade the Internet. NREN will approximately fifty times faster than the fastest network available today. Computer networks worldwide will feature 3-D animated graphics, radio and cellular phone-links to portable computers, as well as fax, voice, and high-definition television.         Learning about the Internet now is wise. By the turn of the century, 'computer literacy' will be forcing itself into the texture of the lives of every man, woman, and child on Earth.