The US Air Force put up a prize for the solution to what they called the "connection problem". As missile guidance systems grew more complex, the failure rate went up geometrically. Most failures were at solder joints. A guy at TI filed the original patent - and the story of that is wild and wooly - that covers all those little black rectangles that drive modern electronic technology.
"The internet" was originally a system to connect various military installations with civilian suppliers. It grew into something nobody would have expected...
Just about everything in electronics, computers, and the subsidiary technologies that depend on them were driven by the Cold War. Overall, the Cold War wasn't such a bad thing...