The Most Influential Audio-Visual Technological Discovery

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The Most Influential Audio-Visual Technological Discovery

In order for something to be the most influential discovery ever it must follow certain criteria. I'm defining the word discovery to be synomous with invention in that it is something that was "happened upon" and developed and didn't necessarily exist for all time. In order to be the most influential it must permeate every part of our lives, from leisure, education, business, and travel, to the very social system itself. It must be capable of world wide use and also improve life both orally and visually for all members of society.

The most important audio-visual discovery of the 20th century is by far the internet. It has revolutionised almost every aspect of our lives from the way we study, work, shop, relax and above all communicate.

The internet as we know it developed from a government project to send secure information from one remote computer to another. The DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) began work on the internet in 1973 under the guiding influence of Larry Roberts. He designed the Arpas first network where a machine called an Interface message processor (IMP) would connect individual sites, route messages, scan errors and confirm the arrival of messages at their intended destination. A number of innovations led to the development of the modern internet. First was the development of the computerised bulletin board (today's message boards) by Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss, second was the standardisation of internet access through TCP (transfer Control Protocol) and IP internet protocol, and third was the development of software for information retrieval which would become the WWW. World wide web. (Moschovitis et al)

The internet consists of a global network of computers joined together to form one large interconnected network. It relies on Routers, Naps, ISPs, DNS and powerful servers to connect the network.

Each computer on the network uses a modem to connect to the ISP (Internet service Provider eg Eircom) which operates the telephone lines. When you connect to the internet you become part of their network. Companies may be part of a Local Area Network all connected at points of presence in various cities. There is no overall connecting network but several high level networks connected to each other through Network Access Points or NAP's. Backbones, or fibre optic trunk lines, carry the information through routers, or specialised computers which sort and determine where to send your information.

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