50 years of the Internet: Curiosities from the history of the Internet
The foundations for the Internet were laid 50 years ago. The network at that time was called Arpanet and initially only connected U.S. universities.
- The first Internet connection on October 29, 1969, flopped: The computer hung up as soon as the "o" in "login" was entered. A few hours later, it worked: a computer at the University of California in Los Angeles communicated with a computer at Stanford University near San Francisco.
- The Queen was the first head of state to send an e-mail. On March 26, 1976, she sent an electronic message from Malvern in Worcestershire via Arpanet, the not-yet-mass-market precursor to the Internet. Her e-mail address was "HME2" - "Her Majesty, Elizabeth II."
- One of the first computer viruses was "Creeper", which circulated on the Arpanet in 1971 and identified itself with the message "I'M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN". Its counterpart, "The Reaper", is considered the first antivirus in history.
- The first Facebook logo from 2004 featured a portrait of Al Pacino.
- The "Like" button was originally called the "Awesome Button".
- "Gmail" was originally a free mail service for Garfield fans.
- One of the U.S. Army's worst friendly fires was caused by the Internet. A soldier was programming a GPS for a B-52 bomber on a Taliban position when he realized the battery was weakening. After he replaced it, the GPS rebooted undetected and went back to the initial coordinates - the soldier's position. He and 7 comrades died.
- 20 years ago, the Internet required 0 electricity. Today, the digital economy needs 10 percent of the energy, more than was needed to light the entire globe in 1985. Today, transporting data consumes 50 percent more energy than global air traffic.
- Virtually all companies list the privacy policies they follow. According to Techdirt.com, it would take an average user 181 to 304 hours per year, or 22-38 business days, to read these policies. No one does, everyone acknowledges.
- A modern smartphone has a million more RAM than the AGC on-board computer that took Apollo 11 to the moon. The 512 gigabytes of fixed memory of a smartphone are around seven million times more than the 72 kibibytes (1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes) of the AGC. The iPhone 6 is already said to have been 120 million times faster than the AGC.
- Google hired a woman named Bonnie Brown as a part-time physotherapist in 1999 for $450 a week in wages and options on employee stock. When she quit after five years, her stock options were worth $12 million. (SDA)
