1950s Gets A Very Primitive Internet

Like my thread here:
http://forums.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=231199
that is about the 1950s getting a modern internet.

How will the 1950s do if they had a extremely primitive internet? Suppose computer technologies advanced quite a lot after WWII and the first computers were made in the 1950s that looked like home TVs (at that time period) and the internet was invented then. How will technology progress now that they have a internet? What do you think a primitive 1950s internet would look like?
 
In a conservative era such as the 1950s, it won't be too hard to push for legislation in the US to heavily regulate it. Add into that the high tension of the Cold War during the so-called Golden Era of Communism, and there will be additional fears of subversion through the internet. It all depends on how its implemented, but I don't think it will be an internet we recognize. More like it will be peer-to-peer connections and small networks that wouldn't even approach international communication.
 
Like my thread here:
http://forums.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=231199
that is about the 1950s getting a modern internet.

How will the 1950s do if they had a extremely primitive internet? Suppose computer technologies advanced quite a lot after WWII and the first computers were made in the 1950s that looked like home TVs (at that time period) and the internet was invented then. How will technology progress now that they have a internet? What do you think a primitive 1950s internet would look like?
That kind of change would change everything.

Computers as powerful as your WATCH were the size of a refrigerator, or bigger and cost a WHOLE lot.

Primitive internet - connecting major business offices and telephone exchanges? maybe. So what?

Connecting homes? no way. Sorry.
 
To be quite honest, at this point in time, I doubt that any computer with internet could perform any function which can't be already done by, say, a telephone and some postmen/couriers.

So, yeah, I don't think the necessity is there.
 
To be quite honest, at this point in time, I doubt that any computer with internet could perform any function which can't be already done by, say, a telephone and some postmen/couriers.

So, yeah, I don't think the necessity is there.

Of course it's not there. It isn't even here, in terms of raw bandwidth a station-wagon full of flash memory barreling down the highway is still faster than most people's internet connections. And for most people today the internet is still a luxury rather than a necessity - look at what they do with it. There are other ways to send messages, pay bills, get movies or whatever, so it's not a necessity. But it is convenient, especially since you can do all those things without leaving your chair. I can see it being useful to universities, governments and big businesses at first (in much the same way as the internet was IOTL, and for the same things). Being able to search a library catalogue without actually going there makes it quicker to find the book when you do, just as an example, and if the big box in your living room can give you the same articles as your newspaper then the daily papers will come under pressure earlier. Simple text data doesn't require a very fast connection, so something like that might be possible. Look back the early days of BBS's for the sorts of things that people might do with it, discussion forums like this are an obvious start.
 
I found out only a couple of hours ago what the difference between the internet and the world wide web is.

Apparently the internet is all about packet (as opposed to message) switching, once packet switching was developed in about 1969 there were half a dozen internets within 5 years for different shit in a few countries.

On the other hand apparently the WWW is all about hypertext links, and I`m guessing it also needed a computer as fancy and expensive as the $6500 (in 1989) as the NeXT that Berners-lee used at CERN as the world first www server.

Now I don`t know what any of that shit means. But can packet switching be invented before the mid 60s? Can hypertext links and computers like the NeXT be invented before the late 80s?
 
Ceefax was started up in 1974. Arpanet was 1970. You had 1200 baud modems as early as 1968. All you really need is a 300 baud modem for slow dial up.

The bell 103a standard came out in 1962.

You could easilly have a more mass market early "pre-web" internet (email, usenet, ftp, primitive search engines, primitive hypertext) by the 1970s.
 
If you can have a primitive internet and www by the 70s can the Commodore 64 and the like use it in mid 80s?
 
Actually any computer since the mid 70s that could hook up to a 300 baud modem in theory could use a text-only internet.

That includes Radioshack TRS-80, Apple II, Commodore PET, and the Atari 400 all by the late 1970s.

An earlier internet might have encouraged a faster development of mass market computers.
 
OTL Internet was developed so in event of a limited nuclear war, surviving American military units could still communicate. (And indeed, it does provide that. As well as side effects like forums discussing alternate history.) If packet switching is developed in the 1950s, then in event of a limited nuclear war, surviving entities with enough funds to have a computer can still communicate. And given the relatively small numbers of Soviet missiles and bombers, even a fullscale Bolt From The Blue strike by the Soviets would leave surviving US cities.

So: maybe a more aggressive US foreign policy? A push for military bases to all get computers? The first civilian uses might be replacing telegraphs for newswire services or banks.

Even in the 50s, a science fiction mailing list is likely to be an early unofficial use, computer techies being what they are.
 
I plucked this off Wiki.

Packet switching is a rapid store-and-forward networking design that divides messages up into arbitrary packets, with routing decisions made per-packet. Early networks used message switched systems that required rigid routing structures prone to single point of failure. This led Tommy Krash and Paul Baran's U.S. military funded research to focus on using message-blocks to include network redundancy,[6] which in turn led to the widespread urban legend that the Internet was designed to resist nuclear attack.

Apparently the search for redundancy led to a belief that the net was designed for nuclear war.
 
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