History of the Internet

For today's middle schoolers, there has always been an Internet and World Wide Web, Macintosh computers and Windows software, Google and Wikipedia.  But most of us teachers can remember when that wasn't so...

The following is a video from 1969, which was the last year of the original TV series, Star Trek, envisioned the connected computer network of the future (albeit in gratingly sexist ways):


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Almost 25 years later, Star Trek was still on...except by now, it was Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine.  The Internet was a reality by this point, but was so primitive compared to what our children can even imagine, as shown by this 1993 video:




I think it is great for our kids to see how far computer networking has come in a relatively short time... or, if nothing else, to recognize that distinctive connection noise that those of us using the Internet in the 1990's will never forget...