EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very
     similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM.

     FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings.

1984
     Domain Name System (DNS) introduced.

     Number of hosts breaks 1,000

     JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP.

     JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the
     Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet.

     Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)

     Neuromancer written by William Gibson

1985
    Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started

    Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC is given responsibility
    for DNS root management by DCA, and SRI for DNS NIC registrations

    Symbolics.com is assigned on 15 March to become the first registered
    domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu, purdue.edu, rice.edu, ucla.edu
    (April); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July)

    100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-
    Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to BITNET
    in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)






 
RFC 2235               Hobbes' Internet Timeline           November 1997


1986
     NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
        - NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide
          high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh,
          SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell).
        - This allows an explosion of connections, especially from
          universities.

     NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational
     (:sw1:)

     Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task
     Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB. First IETF meeting
     held in January at Linkabit in San Diego

     The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the
     auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later
     Freenet program management assumed by the National Public
     Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)

     Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet
     news performance over TCP/IP.

     Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow
     non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.

     The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.

     BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high
     speed links. Operational in 1987.

1987
     NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone
     with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI involvement was through an
     agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.

     UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and
     Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike
     O'Dell

     Email link established between Germany and China using CSNET
     protocols, with the first message from China sent on 20 September.
     (:wz1:)

     1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"

     Number of hosts breaks 10,000





 
RFC 2235               Hobbes' Internet Timeline           November 1997


     Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000