famouspioneers.com

The Man Who Made House Cleaning Easier

When you vacuum the floor of your home, you are actually working with an invention that is actually a brainchild of James Spangler who conceived the idea in 1907. Spangler, an person suffering from asthma, believe the dust from the carpet sweeper he was using caused his cough. He stapled a soap box to a broom, attached an old fan motor to the soap box, and use a pillow case to collect the dust. The portable electric vacuum cleaner was born. In 1908, he was granted a patent of the improved version of his invention.

Spangler formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company to manufacture his invention. One of his customers was his cousin whose husband was William Hoover. Hoover, a person who made saddles, and sold leather, was looking for a new business to venture into. He was so impressed with Spangler’s vacuum cleaner that he bought his business and patent. As the result of the purchase, Hoover became the president of the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. In 1922, He changed the name of company to the Hoover Company. Today, there are houses all over the world with Hoover vacuum cleaners.

The Man Behind the Modern Mobile Phone

The telephone at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories rang. The call was for Joel Engel, the head of research. It was not an ordinary call or just any other call. It was from the world’s first modern cellular phone. The caller was Martin Cooper. Who worked for one of AT&T’s rival, Motorola. The historical conversation happened on the third day of April in the year 1973. The product used by Cooper was a Motorola DynaTAC.

Martin Copper was born on December 26, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. During the Second World War, Copper served in the Navy. After the war, he started to work for Teletype which was a subsidiary of Western Electric. In 1954, he started his employment at Motorola. In 1957http://famouspioneers.com/?p=293&preview=true, Cooper graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

In the 1960s, Cooper made it possible for a person to page from one building to another. Previously paging was only possible within a building. In the early 1970s, John F. Mitchell who became Motorola’s chief engineer of portable communication products in 1960 made Cooper to be in charged of its car phone division. Both Cooper and Mitchell thought of a phone that could be carried and used anywhere. In 1972, the first prototype of the idea was made.

Cooper and his team managed to reduce the weigh of the cellular phone by half. Cooper worked for Motorola until 1992. On 1992, Cooper partnered with Richard Roy, a researcher at Stanford University, to form ArrayComm, a wireless communication software company.

Cooper was awarded the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award in 1995 and the Prince of Asturias award for scientific and technical research in 2009.

The first mobile phone has the length of nine inches, height of 1.75 inches and a width of 1.75 inches. It weighed 2.5 pounds. Unlike the current models, it did not any display. It contained 30 circuit boards. A person was allowed to talk with it up 35 minutes before the batteries ran out. Recharging the phone took 10 hours. One could used it only to dial, talk, or listen.

Source:

• “Martin Cooper, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Martin_Cooper (Accessed January 12, 2010)
• “Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Wharton_Infosys_Business_Transformation_Award (Accessed January 12, 2010)
• “Martin Cooper – History of Cell Phone, http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/martin_cooper.htm (Accessed January 12, 2010)
• “Martin Cooper – Inventor Of The Cellphone, http://www.cellular.co.za/cellphone_inventor.htm (Accessed January 12, 2010)

Who Invented the Mobile Phone?

It is not uncommon nowadays to see someone in a modern city using a mobile or cell phone. Have you ever wondered who was the person who invented the mobile phone?

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a man by the name of Martin Cooper who worked for Motorola invented the modern mobile phone or the world’s first handheld cellular phone. While walking along a street in New York City, Cooper made the first cell phone call to his rival Joel Engel, head of research at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. Unlike today’s models, Cooper’s mobile phone is almost as large as brick and weighed about 2 kilos. It also had shorter battery life which lasted from 10 to 20 minutes. According to About.com, Richard W. Dronsuth, Charles N. Lynk Jr., Albert J. Mikulski, James J. Mikulski, John F. Mitchell, Roy A. Richardson, and John H. Sangster worked with Cooper to developed the world’s first cell or mobile phone.

Although it appears that Cooper was the first to invent the mobile phone, a number events had happened many years before Cooper made his own mobile phone that led to his invention. Some time back in 1947, Engineers at Bell Laboratory invented mobile phone stations. During that year, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young introduced hexagonal cells for mobile phones. In 1956, Ericsson introduced the word’s first fully automatic mobile phone system in Sweden. The system was known as MTA (Mobile Telephone System A). Although, it was fully automatic, no many people were impressed with it as it was too heavy. Later in 1965, a lighter version known as MTB ( Mobile Telephone System B) was introduced.

Before hexagonal cells came into existence, the military and a some rich people used radio phone. The invention of hexagonal cells made radio phone almost useless.

In the 1980s, cellular networks became fully automatic and in turn, caused the use of cell phones to be cheaper. As a result, more people used cell or mobile phones in their cars. It was in the 1990s that cell phones became portable and cheap enough for the average consumer to use. From that time onwards mobile phone became a common communication tool.

Source:

• Gibson, Jano, “Meet the man who invented the mobile, “Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/25/1111692604812.html (Accessed January 10, 2010)
• Gite, Vivek, “Who Invented Mobile Phone?, “Hakuna Matata, http://theos.in/technology/invented-mobile-phone-history/ (Accessed January 10, 2010)
• “History Of Cell Phones, http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/history-of-cell-phones-4593.html (Accessed January 10, 2010)
• “Who Invented the Cell Phone?, http://www.tech-faq.com/who-invented-cell-phones.shtml (Accessed January 10, 2010)
• Bellis, Mary, “Selling The Cell Phone, History of Cellular Phones, About.com, http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070899.htm (Accessed January 10, 2010)

The World’s First Computer Printer

Have you ever wondered what the world’s first computer printer is? Is it a noisy daisy-wheel printer since they seems to be most primitive kind of printer around? Was it invented during the 20th century since it was during that time when most computer systems were developed? I searched the Internet for answers and had a big surprise indeed.

According to Wikipedia, the first computer printer was actually made during the nineteenth century. It was made by Charles Babbage for his Difference Engine, an early computer. An article from the official website of the British Broadcasting Corporation better known as the BBC further confirms this fact. The article states that the printer was designed more than 150 years ago. The printer was tested and it was considered advanced for its days. It can be programmed by the user to produce a certain print layout and can print the result of a calculation.

Source:

• Wikipedia contributors, “Printer (computing),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Printer_(computing)&oldid=333946336 (accessed January 7, 2010).
• “Babbage printer finally runs, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/710950.stm” (accessed January 7, 2010).

Babbage, A Man Ahead of His Time

Babbage was born on December 26, 1796 in London, England. Babbage’s father Benjamin was a banking partner of the Praeds. His mother was Betsy Plumleigh Babbage. In 1810, Babbage entered Trinity College in Cambridge. The next year, he discovered his mathematical skills to be more advanced than his own tutors. During his younger days, he taught himself algebra while he was at an academy run by the Reverend Stephen Freeman.

Babbage founded the Analytical Society with Caroline Herschel, George Peacock and other people to promote continental mathematics and to reform the mathematics of Issac Newton as he was disappointed with the mathematic program at Cambridge. Babbage become an instructor at his own college. Although he was the best mathematician, Babbaged failed to graduated with honours in 1812. Two years later, he was awarded an honorary degree without having to sit for any examination.

Georgiana Whitmore became Babbage’s wife in 1814 at St. Michael’s Church in Teignmouth, Devon. The marriage was never approved by his father. The couple had eight children and only three of them reached adulthood. In 1827, Babagge’s father, his wife, and one of his son died in a tragedy.

When Babbage was in his twenties, he worked as mathematician specializing in calculus. From 1828 to 1839, Babbage occupied the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge. He was one of the key players in the formation of the Association for the Advancement of Science and the Statistical Society which later became the Royal Statistical Society.

On June 14, 1822, Babbage presented the “Difference Engine” in his paper entitled “Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables.” to the Statistical Society which approved of his idea. The government granted Babbage 1500 pounds to build the engine in 1823. Construction was interrupted due to the tragic death of his wife, his father, and one of his son. During his time of grievance, he took a holiday to Europe. While in Italy, he heard that he was made a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and was appointed to the post in 1828. During his absense, rumours were spread about the unreliability of his difference engine and Babbage was wasting the government’s money. The government at first, continued to support him but later Babbage found himself difficult to find money for his project. Babbage had problems with the treasury because of his disagreements with Clement. In the end Babbage didn’t get the chance to see the complete version of his “Difference Engine” during his lifetime.

In my opinion, although Babbage failed to construct a complete working model of his Analytical Engine and the Difference Engine, he was considered a genius and a pioneer in the computer world because his ideas were later proven to work or were seen to be ideal for a practical computer. An working copy of the Difference Engine was constructed in 1991. Other than the two computing engines, Babbage also designed a printer for his Difference Engine. A working copy of the printer was finally completed in the year 2000. You can watch a video of the difference engine in action on the computer history museum’s website.

I remember reading some time ago that while working on this difference engine, Babbage worked with one lady by the name of Augusta Ada Lovelace. If I have not mistaken, Lovelave was considered the first computer programmer because she was the first to write a set of instructions for the Difference Engine. A computer program is in fact, a set of instructions for the computer to follow in order to produce some expected outcome.

Charles Babbage also some books Among the books he had written included “Table of the logarithms of the natural numbers from 1 to 108000″ which was published in 1841, On the economy of machinery and manufactures which was published in 1835, and “Passages from the Life of a Philosopher” which was published in London in 1864. Charles Babbage died on October 18, 1871 at the age of 79.

Sources:

• “Charles Babbage, http://www.thocp.net/biographies/babbage_charles.html (Accessed January 7,2010)
• “Babbage’s Printer Finally Runs, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/710950.stm (Accessed January 7,2010)
• “Charles Babbage Biography, http://www.charlesbabbage.net/ (Accessed January 7,2010)
• “The Babbage Engine, http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/ (Accessed January 7,2010)
• Wikipedia contributors, “Charles Babbage,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Babbage&oldid=335977656 (accessed January 7, 2010).

The Father of Electronic Television

When I was a kid I read about the history of the television. I remember reading about John Logie Baird and his televisor, a mechanical television. It was only in the 21st century with Internet technology that I came across articles about the true inventor of the electronic televsion, the kind of television as we know today.

One day, a fourteen year old boy drew his idea for a television for his science teacher. The boy was Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906 Indian Creek, a place located near Beaver, Utah to Lewis Edwin and Serena Amanda Bastian Farnsworth. In 1924, Farnsworth enrolled at Bringham Young University but was forced to abandoned his studies due to his father’s death. Farnsworth studied radio technology through correspondent courses with his friend. He read about cathode ray tubes and vacuum tubes during his spare time. Due to lack of money, Phil could not put what he drew for his science teacher to the test. Farnsworth became a member of the Crocker Research Laboratories in San Francisco in 1926.

One of the bosses Farnsworth worked for was George Everson. Everson was interested in Farnsworth’s idea and asked him to show it to an experienced engineer who approved of it. As a result, Farnsworth manage to get financed for his project.

Farnsworth became the first person to produce a fully-electronic image for television. He filed a patent (Patent No. 1,773,980) for his invention that allowed him to do so on January 7, 1927, the date considered as the day electronic television was officially invented. The invention was known as the “Image Dissector” In 1929, Crocker Research Laboratories was renamed Farnworth Television, Inc. Here are some examples of television produced by Farnsworth’s television company.

Meanwhile at Radio Corporation America, Zworykin invented a rival product known as the “Iconoscope” and wanted to have priority over Farnsworth’s invention. They wanted to control the television industry just as they did with radio. However, the court ruled in favour of Farmsworth after his former science teacher presented the sketch of the drawing Farnsworth made when he was 14. Although, Farnsworth won, RCA could appeal and they did so. Their action pushed Farnsworth’s legal fees to the limit. While his patent being contested, Farnsworth could not issue licenses and collect royalties. Money needed for further research had to be used to pay the legal fees needed to help Farnsworth to win. RCA appealed against the priority of invention given to Farnsworth because they did not want to pay royalties to Farnsworth. Howerver, the company had to pay Farnsworth royalty for the very first time in December, 1939.

Farnworth Radio and Television Corporation, the company the bore the inventor’s name was contracted to build electronic equipments for the army during the second world war. When war was over, demand for television skyrocketed but the company was unable to captalised on it due to poor management. In the end, Farnsworth Radio and Television became part of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), a company formed in 1920. Farnsworth worked for ITT until 1967.

Farnsworth fell in love with his friend, Cliff’s sister, Pem and married her when he was 19. Pem fought hard to have husband recognised as the true inventor of television for years after his death. The couple watched the first landing on the moon on the television together and Farnsworth felt all his effort to bring the first electronic television to the world was worth while.

Although, John Logie Baird was the original inventor of television, Farnsworth had indeed help make television images clearer with his invention. A television system no longer employ the use of the Nipkow disk as it was with Baird’s invention.

When Farnsworth died in 1971, he held more than 300 foreign and US patents.

More on the invention of television can be found in my other article.

Sources

• “The Birth of Television, http://www.videouniversity.com/articles/the-birth-of-television (accessed January 6, 2010)

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• “Philo Taylor Farnsworth, http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/56.html (accessed January 6, 2010)

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• Wikipedia contributors, “ITT Corporation,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ITT_Corporation&oldid=333593502 (accessed January 6, 2010)

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Who Actually Invented Television?

You might have read about John Logie Baird from textbooks or some websites on the Internet. John Logie Baird is officially recognised to be the first to work on the possibility of transmitting images through radio waves using his invention, the televisor, the forerunner of the modern television which he demonstrated in 1924. Baird had earlier file a patent for his invention a year earlier. Baird’s television is far from the type we are acustomed to today. Unlike the modern equipment we have today, the telivisor has moving parts especially the rotating disk known as the Nipkow disk or the scanning disk. The problem with this system is the poor quaility of the image and the noise it produces. The modern TV that we are more accustomed to has no moving parts at all. It is also known as the electronic television and it is not invented by John Logie Baird. When I was a kid, I remember reading about one Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, a Russian scientist who worked for RCA in America who invented the television tube which gave the impression that he was the one who invented the modern television.

Zworykin filed a patent No. 2,141,059 for his Iconoscope, the first practical television tube. In 1925, Kenjiro Takayanagi, a young Japanese read about Baird’s invention and built a similar machine himself. Like Baird he used Nipkow disk to scan the object and to produce the signals. Unlike Baird, he displayed the received the signals with a cathode ray tube. In 1929, Zworykin invented the Kinescope without which one could not watch the television.

When I was searching for more information on the invention of the television for this blog post, I discovered that a young 14-year-old boy at a farm in Utah had a better idea. His name was Philo Taylor Farnsworth. In 1920, the young boy <"http://linkbee.com/EXMTI">drew a picture of his idea of a television for his teacher. The drawing was later used by Farnsworth as guide to build his own television camera, the dissector tube, and became a important piece of evidence that helped him to win a patent interference case brought against him by Radio Corporation America (RCA). In 1927, Farnsworth build an all electronic television which did not have any moving parts at all. Farnsworth was smart to file a pattern for his invention in 1927. A, RCA, the company who “only receive patent royalties and never pay for them” had no choice but to pay royalties to Farnsworth for the use of his patent.

Although, Baird was the first to truly demonstrate a system that allowed images to be transmitted without wires, earlier experiments by some people from the nineteenth century that led to the invention of television should not be ignored. For example, the Nipkow disk used by Baird in his televisor was invented by Paul Nipkow in 1884. If you have any more interesting facts about the invention of television, please leave it as a a comment.

Sources:

• Farnsworth for the television. http://philotfarnsworth.com/01773980_1.PDF (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “The Invention of Television: The Early Pioneers, http://www.teletronic.co.uk/pioneers.htm (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Television Time Line, http://www.teletronic.co.uk/televisiontimeline2.htm (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Philo Taylor Farnswoth, http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=farnsworthp (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “The Farnsworth Chronicles, http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/tfc-who_invented_what.html (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Fascinating facts about Philo T. Farnsworth inventor of Television in 1927, http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/farnsworth.htm (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Paul Schatzkin, http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Television.htm (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Paul_Gottlieb_Nipkow/ (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• Bellis, Mary “Vladimir Zworykin 1889-1982, http://inventors.about.com/od/xzstartinventors/a/Zworykin.htm (Accessed January 4, 2010)
• “Paul Nipkow, http://www.bairdtelevision.com/nipkow.html (Accessed January 4, 2010)

Discovering Sir James Dewar the Inventor of the Vacuum Flask.

Chemistryexplained.com also stated that Sir James enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study chemistry and physics. The scientist was appointed Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 1873 according to chemistryexplained.com but in 1875 according to nndb.com after working as a chemist for several organisations in Scotland. This is also stated on nndb.com which further states that the apointment also made him a fellow of Peterhouse. In 1877, Dewar became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. While at Cambridge, Dewar work with together George Downing Liveing (I wonder if the Liveing should be spelt as Living instead) who according to nndb.com won a Davy Medal in 1901, on an extensive spectra study that linked atomic and moecular states with spectra. At the Royal Institution, Dewar collaborated with Frederick Abel in the late 1880s to invent explosive cordite. 1878, Sir James demostrated how oxygen could be liquified at the Royal Institution, something that was successfully done in France a year earlier.

According to nndb.com, Sir James “investigated the physiological action of light, and examined the changes which take place in the electrical condition of the eye’s retina while it is under the influence of the light with Professor J. G. McKendrick of Glasgow”. According to rampantscotland.com, Sir James did research work on “the liquefaction of gases and the property of matter at extremely low temperatures”. The same website aslo stated he was the first person to turn hydrogen into liquid and later, into solid. He also demonstrated that at low temperatures, the ability of metal to conduct electricity was increased. His work with low temperatures led to ideas for the vacuum flask.

According to chemistryexplained.com, the patent for Sir James’s famous invention, the vacuum flask was obtained by Thermos, a company that is still manufacturing the vacuum flask. Thus, the vacuum flask is known as the Thermos flask until today. Should, Sir James have obtained the patent instead and form his own business to manufacture the flask for commercial use, the name Dewar flask might have become a household name instead. To the scientist who used Sir James’s invention for their work, it was known as the Dewar flask. The original purpose of the vacuum flask was to keep the liquefied gas as long as possible as the process of liquefying was expensive and time consuming.

According to biography.com, Sir James invented a machine that was used to produce large quantity of liquid oxygen.

For his achievements, Sir James was according to awarded the Rumford Medal for his producing low temperatures in 1894, the the Lavoisier medal of the French Academy of Sciences in 1904, the Matteucci medal of the Italian Society of Sciences in 1906, and the Albert medal of the Society of Arts in 1908. He was knighted
by Edward VII in 1904.

Sources:

• “Dewar James, “Chemisty Explained, http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Co-Di/Dewar-James.html (Accessed January 3, 2010)
• Soylent Communications, “Davy Medal, “NNDB, http://www.nndb.com/honors/624/000100324/ (Accessed January 3, 2010)
• Soylent Communications, “James Dewar, “NNDB, http://www.nndb.com/people/094/000099794 (Accessed January 3, 2010)
• “Famous Scots- Sir James Dewar (1842-1923), http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/blfamdewar.htm (Accessed January 3, 2010)
• “Sir James Dewar Biography, http://www.biography.com/articles/Sir-James-Dewar-9273425(Accessed January 3, 2010)

Who invented the Thermos Flask?

The Thermos flask was invented by Sir James Dewar, a Scottish chemist at Oxford University in 1892. Since, it was invented by Dewar, the Thermos flask was also known as the Dewar flask. The Thermos flask actually consists of two flasks, one inside the other. Both flasks are separated by a vacuum which “greatly reduces the transfer of heat” (Bellis). This technique enables the Thermos flask to keep hot contents hot and cold contents cold for a long time. Dewar orginally invented the Thermos flask primarily to assist himself with his work with liquid gases. In 1904, Dewar’s invention was manufactured for the first time, for commercial use.

Sources:

• Bellis, Mary, “Sir James Dewar, http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blthermos.htm (Retrieved January 1, 2009)
• “Our History, “Thermos, http://www.thermos.com/history.aspx (Retrieved January 1, 2009)
• “James Dewar, http://www.answers.com/topic/james-dewar (Retrieved January 1, 2009)

Who Invented the Internet?

According to Boutell.com, the Internet was not invented by one single person. Instead more than one person had contributed to development of the Internet over a number of years. It began in 1961 when Leonard Kleinrock began to publish the first paper on packet switching, something that is essential for the Internet to work. Packet switching is a concept where the address information in the data can route packets of data form one place to another. This is similar to a letter being post to a location basing on the address written on the envelope. Packet switching enables packets of data for millions of Internet users to share a single physical connection to the Internet thus eliminating the need of many phone lines and modems.

In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider described “Galatic Network”, something which is similar to the Internet. In 1965, Larry G Roberts established the first long distance networks of computers. In 1966, he designed Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), a computer networking system from which the Internet was developed. IN 1972, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which enables data to be trasported on the Internet.

In the 1980s, Radia Perlman invented the spanning tree algorithm which enabled separate networks to be bridged efficiently. Without her invention, large networks like the Internet will be useless.

According to tech-faq.com, the Internet has its beginnings at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Researchers and Scientists in the agency had already started work that led to the Internet since the 1950s. J.C.R. Licklider, whom I mentioned earlier, was the head of the agency. According to the same website, a computer at the University of California in Los Angeles became the first computer to be connected to the Internet. This was in the year 1969.

In 1973, Larry G. Roberts resigned from ARPA to established the world’s first commercial network, ARPANET. Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf remained in ARPA to continue working on the Internet project. They both developed TCP/IP. At this point, ARPANET become known as the Internet, a term more familiar to us. Some people believed that ARPANET was conceived for military purposes, but according to nethistory.info, Bob Taylor, the person who was in-charge of ARPANET insisted that the purpose for ARPANET was for scientific and not military.

According to computerhope.com, Bob Metcalfe developed the Ethernet in 1973. The same website also states that Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel are the ones who introduced Domain Name Service (DNS) in 1984. DNS helps to point the hostname or domain name to the IP address it is associated with.

Sources:

• “WWW FAQs: Who invented the Internet?, http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/inventednet.html (Accessed January 1, 2010)
• “Who Invented the Internet?, http://www.tech-faq.com/who-invented-internet.shtml (Accessed January 1, 2010)
• “Who invented the Internet?, http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001016.htm (Accessed January 1, 2010)
• Peter, Ian, “The beginnings of the Internet, http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/beginnings.html (Accessed January 1, 2010)
• “”DNS, http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/dns.htm (Accessed January 1, 2010)