Reader comments
Battle of the behemoths

4 comments   |   Read story

Picking nits | 8:49 a.m. July 10, 2009
The "Internet" existed, at least on paper, as early as 1974 (see RFC 675) and had been under development since 1973. Its direct ancestor, the ARPANET, was already connecting nodes in 1969. The first Internet router and gateway were tested by BBN in 1975. By 1983, all of ARPANET had switched to the new Internet protocols. MS-DOS 1.0 was released in 1982 and Microsoft probably had no inkling about what was going on at DARPA, BBN, and Stanford.

What we call "The Internet" today is more properly termed the "World Wide Web," made possible by Tim Berners-Lee's invention in 1989. The Internet forms the infrastructure over which Berners-Lee's hypertext linked documents could be navigated.

In 1994, Netscape's web browser made all of this relevant to the general public while Microsoft completely missed the boat. Unfortunately, with its monopoly status, Microsoft later fused their own IE browser into the OS, making it ubiquitous and pushing Netscape out of the market.

Let's see if Google's new monopoly will be able to upset Microsoft's old one.
Recommend
Recommendations: 0
Battling b-moths | 9:26 a.m. July 10, 2009
Personally I have never seen moths battling, but beer-moths are a different matter. We all act at least a little strangely under the influence of drink. Who is giving these insects booze?
Recommend
Recommendations: 0
Mike | 10:18 a.m. July 10, 2009
I thought Al Gore invented the Internet?
Recommend
Recommendations: 0
Rush Junior | 5:55 p.m. July 10, 2009
Actually it was Mr. Rush Limbaugh who invented the Internet. Rush knows everthing!!!
Recommend
Recommendations: 0