A parallel interface is provided between a standard parallel port of a computer system and a modem so as to increase the data transfer rate between the two systems without modifying the hardware of the computer system and independently of the application program running on the computer system.

High performance communications interface

The origins of the Internet are only partially understood. It is often believed that the Internet grew as a tree from a tiny acorn, the ARPANET network set up in 1969. In this study, we argue that this interpretation is incomplete at best and seriously flawed at worst. Our article makes three contributions. First, on the basis of a wide variety of primary and secondary sources we reconstruct the history of computer networks between the late 1950s and the early 1990s. We show that the ARPANET network was one among a myriad of (commercial and non-commercial) networks that developed over that period of time – the integration of these networks into an internet was likely to happen, whether ARPANET existed or not. Second, we make a systematic effort to quantify the significance of these various networks. This allows us to visualize more clearly the extent to which the ARPANET network was one among many, and not a particularly large one at that. Third, we provide a nuanced interpretation of the rise of various technologies, including the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and the World Wide Web, as ‘dominant designs.’ Their rise should be interpreted within the economic framework of industries with network effects, in which historical accidents bring about tipping points that lead to universal acceptance. We thus show that history matters for understanding why information systems function in the way they do.

The history of the internet: the missing narratives

Most histories of the Internet, both scholarly and popular, focus on its origins in the ARPANET network built by the U.S. Advanced Projects Research Agency in the late 1960s. In this paper it is shown that the ARPANET was just one of many private and public initiatives that helped shape the Internet of today. For example, the early 1960s saw the deployment of numerous defense networks (such as the $8 billion SAGE program), the first airline reservation systems, and the beginnings of the remote computer services industry. The 1970s saw the development of computerized networks for banks and the rise of the Electronic Data Interchange movement, which established business-to-business communications across many industry sectors. The 1970s also saw the first online information providers, such as Lexis and Dialog, and the first global data communications networks to connect users to these services. With the rise of the personal computer in the 1980s, a vista of computer networking services opened up: the first consumer networks such as CompuServe and Prodigy, the first commercial email services, and Videotext services that became the basis for national information infrastructures in many countries. In the 1990s, the embryonic Internet was popularized by the World Wide Web - a technology that was rooted in information-science research that long predated networked computers.

The History of the Internet: The Missing Narratives

An interface which enables a LAN connected workstation to concurrently communicate with a plurality of computer platforms having respective network architectures over the same physical connection. The interface receives data from a LAN connection, examines the data and identifies the format being used. Based on the identified format, the interface determines the appropriate destination for the data and sends the data to that destination. Additionally, the interface enables a workstation running XNS software to run terminal emulation programs at the increased speed available from a LAN connection by enhancing the XNS protocol with (1) message segmentation and reassembly, (2) maximum packet size negotiation and (3) LAN address discovery.

Method for providing LAN address discovery and terminal emulation for LAN-connected personal computer (PCs) using xerox network system (XNS)

A method and apparatus for dynamically providing a path through a network of nodes or granules may use a limited, advanced look at potential steps along a plurality of available paths. Given an initial position, at an initial node or granule within a network, and some destination node or granule in the network, all nodes or granules may be represented in a connected graph. An apparatus and method may evaluate current potential paths, or edges between nodes still considered to lie in potential paths, according to some cost or distance function associated therewith. Each next edge may lie ahead across the advancing "partial" wavefront, toward a new candidate node being considered for the path. With each advancement of the wavefront, one or more potential paths, previously considered, may be dropped from consideration. Thus, a "partial" wavefront, limited in size (number of nodes and connecting edges) continues to evaluate some number of the best paths "so far." The method deletes worst paths, backs out of cul-de-sacs, and penalizes turning around. The method and apparatus may be implemented to manage a computer network, a computer internetwork, parallel processors, parallel processes in a multi-processing operating system, a smart scissor for a drawing application, and other systems of nodes.

R. J. Deasington

Papers

X.25 explained : protocols for packet switching networks