Internet

There is no doubt that the transforming introduction in society during my lifetime has been the internet. To be strictly accurate I’m mainly talking about the web which is part of the service carried by the internet. Of course the internet was enabled by the fast evolution of microelectronics. When I was a young man electronics was enabled by electronic valves. These must seem items from a bygone era as they were glass vacuum tubes which enabled electric current through them to be controlled.

When I was still a young man ( I guess in the 60’s ) the transistor introduced solid state electronics. This enabled valves which were large, expensive, power hungry and inflexible to be replaced by components which were none of these things. However transistors were discrete devices and to begin with were largely used to replace valves. From a consumer perspective radio evolved from a large heavy appliance tethered to a power lead to a portable battery powered one. I well remember having a transistor radio in the early 60’s listening to music in a park. In fact the “trannie” radio became a badge for some young people, carried on the shoulder, speaker to the ear.

Very quickly ( or so it seemed to an outsider) transistors were being put together on a silicon mount to make integrated circuits containing many transistors which have since evolved with great rapidity. Computing power grew quickly and became much cheaper.

The other enabling technology for the internet was rapid evolution of telephones. When I was a young man telephoning was quite expensive. Satellite telephony enabled some advance but it was the widespread use of optical fibre which made a massive difference. Instead of one wire per call in a big bundle an optical fibre carried the equivalent of many, many wires.

The internet then used these plus another novel idea. This was packet switching. Instead of the conversation being continuous down one wire effectively information was chopped up into small pieces each one carrying the address of its destination. These could travel any route through the telephone network being reassembled at their destination to reform the original. This made much more efficient use of telephone networks although demanding a lot of computing power to route and reassemble them. This became available at reasonable cost with microelectronics.

After universal standards were written the world wide web was introduced on the internet. Like Martin I was fascinated by microcomputers. His university had a large open access lab containing machines linked to the nascent internet. At that time ( early 90’s ) the internet was being discussed but was rarely available. I didn’t have access anywhere else. Using this lab I was astounded to be able to post a message ( about the TV series Northern Exposure ) and get a  response from someone in the US.

I was immediately a fan.

I was on a telecommunications working group in Castrol and an experience day was organised with BT setting up temporary lines at the HQ in Swindon. I made great use of this and was convinced of its utility for the company. My enthusiasm ( and many others) was however insufficient to convince the company IT department. Even after I joined a European wide ( EU organised ) research group I couldn’t use email like most others but was reduced to faxes.

At that time the only way an individual could use the internet was by ADSL, an early method of using the existing telephone wires. Frustrated at work when I left on retirement at the end of 1996 I purchased a modem, registered and paid a service provider and got connected. Although I got the fastest possible home connection at that time it was still painfully slow. Most of the source servers were in the US and I soon learned that the best time was when the US was asleep.

I was very pleased ( and not a little surprised ) when fibre broadband came to our village. We were the lucky spin off from an exchange upgrade at a nearby town. Not long before we had the great frustration of a new backbone cable between two local towns passing outside my house but no access of course.

The full internet benefits are getting to be beyond me now- I don’t use Instagram, Snapchat. Tik-Tok etc which seem so popular. The one newer application I do use is What’s App where we have a family group ( only immediate family ) useful for keeping in touch. I have used internet banking for a long time and only recently have had trouble with changed security arrangements. This is more an irritation than a real problem.

Unlike most people nowadays I still do most of my internet transactions on a desktop computer rather than a smartphone.

It was Arthur C Clarke who said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If  I had been told about a smartphone when I was at school I would have thought it magical.

I now spend a lot of time on the internet, very little of it on social media, roaming around while comfortably seated at my desk. I can readily keep abreast of many of my interests without moving from my house. I was thrilled to watch the Falcon Heavy rocket launch in real time.