The Beginning - ARPAnet
The Internet started as a project by the US government. The object of the project was to create a means of communications between long distance points, in the event of a nation wide emergency or, more specifically, nuclear war. The project was called ARPAnet, and it is what the Internet started as. Funded specifically for military communication, the engineers responsible for ARPANet had no idea of the possibilities of an "Internet."
By definition, an 'Internet' is four or more computers connected by a network.
ARPAnet achieved its network by using a protocol called TCP/IP. The basics around this protocol was that if information sent over a network failed to get through on one route, it would find another route to work with, as well as establishing a means for one computer to "talk" to another computer, regardless of whether it was a PC or a Macintosh.



Internet的歷史
起源——ARPAnet
Internet是被美國(guó)政府作為一項(xiàng)工程進(jìn)行開(kāi)發(fā)的。這項(xiàng)工程的目的，是為了建立遠(yuǎn)距離之間點(diǎn)與點(diǎn)的通信，以便處理國(guó)家軍事范圍內(nèi)的緊急事件，例如核戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。這項(xiàng)工程被命名為ARPAnet，它就是Internet的前身。建立此工程的主要應(yīng)用對(duì)象就是軍事通訊，那些負(fù)責(zé)ARPAnet的工程師們當(dāng)時(shí)也沒(méi)有想到它將成為“Internet”。
根據(jù)定義，一個(gè)“Internet”應(yīng)該由四或者更多的計(jì)算機(jī)連接起來(lái)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)。
ARPAnet是通過(guò)一種叫TCP/IP的協(xié)議實(shí)現(xiàn)連網(wǎng)工作的。此協(xié)議最基礎(chǔ)的工作原理是：如果信息在網(wǎng)絡(luò)中的一條路徑發(fā)送失敗，那么它將找到其他路徑進(jìn)行發(fā)送，就好象建立一種語(yǔ)言以便一臺(tái)計(jì)算機(jī)與其他計(jì)算機(jī)“交談”一樣，但不注意它是PC，或是Macintosh。