The Gadget Blog » Networking

The First Internet Connection Ever Made

Rico Mossesgeld — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:06:47 +0000

During the same year man walked on the moon, the first node of what later became the ARPANET—predecessor to something we all know as the Internet—was set up. UCLA’s Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Leonard Kleinrock, played a big part of this, developing the “basic principles of packet switching” that made such a groundbreaking achievement possible. The dude won a National Medal of Science last year for this, and he’s the one explaining how what’s basically the first internet connection was made in the video below:

Leonard Kleinrock

An operation that’s done literally millions of times today was much harder to execute way back in ‘69, given that no one did it before:

The first network switch, known as an Interface Message Processor (IMP), arrived at UCLA on Labor Day weekend, 1969. The UCLA team led by Kleinrock had to connect the first host computer to the IMP. This was a challenging task, as no such connection had ever been attempted before. However, by the end of the first day, bits began moving between the UCLA computer and the IMP. By the next day, researchers had messages moving between the machines.

A month later, a second node was added at the Stanford Research Institute, and on Oct. 29, 1969, the first host-to-host message was launched from UCLA.

A great example of how taking the first step is definitely enough to push advances that can literally change the way the world works!

Source

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Captain Kirk’s VoIP Phone: Guaranteed Geekasm

Rico Mossesgeld — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:06:55 +0000

Trekkies everywhere should be in love with Dream Cheeky, because the site’s apparently coming out with a Star Trek themed VoIP speakerphone soon. Constructed like that classic gadget that was William Shatner’s outlet for hammy acting, answering calls with the Star Trek USB Communicator is a simple matter of—you guessed it—flipping the cover up! Talking handsfree is of course accomplished via speakerphone.

And if EverythingUSB’s grammatically-challenged report is accurate, the USB Communicator can also play assorted Star Trek sound “bytes”, comes with independent volume control and mute, and ships with Velcro backing. Supported OSes: XP, Vista, Mac OS X (Tiger and up). No pricing or availability info forthcoming. Stay tuned for updates!

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Disguise Your Geekiness With the STC Wireless Router

Rico Mossesgeld — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:00:37 +0000

Need a flower vase and support for Wi-Fi, wired DSL, and VoIP? Then the STC Wireless Router is absolutely perfect! Coming straight at you from Saudi Telecom.

Yes, you can fill it up with water and place actual flowers in it. And from the looks of it, this router doesn’t have that large a footprint. Now if it could only hide the DSL and power cables really well…

(images from dezeen.com)

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