eli5: How was the internet made?
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Older computer programming needed to be as lean as possible so the dominant system was “master and slaves”. There was one super unit that decided who should do what.
Problem: the military wanted to get rid of this system as a hit to the master computer would have downed the entire military communications. Imagine it like a city with a post office, and everyone allowed to exchange things only by using such office; if someone blows up the office, no one can comunicate.
Studies started to satisfy this but it was soon clear the benefits were too big to be limited to military only. The World Wide Web, a network for everyone, was born.
What is the internet: internet is a communication design based on labeling every place and every message, in a way any computer can read it and redirect it to its destination. This system allowed the grid to keep working and transmitting data as long as there was ANY path between transmitter and receiver. Basically there was no master that could be “killed”. Your pc would label a set of data with “I made it, give it to Jim”, shoot it into the cable, whatever pc “hears” that, will relay the info toward Jim, it keeps going until it gets to the recipient.
In other words, imagine in your entire city, everyone receives a map with the name of everyone. Anyone in town can give a packet labeled “for NoComunity877” to a random guy, and people will just pass that to eachother in the general direction of where you are, sooner or later you get the packet.
What is the basic principle that was missing before: the set of rules that prevent computer to overlap on other computer messages. This was the core issue for which the “master and slave” was used. In a master/slave system only a single unit can decide who transmit when, and keep king the line clean is easy.
The internet is instead a system where any unit can transmit in a way that doesn’t ever overlap. Basically as soon as a unit transmits, the otherS are forced to silence. There’s timing and so on to prevent a single unit to abuse it, so other units will have their time to transmit too. Imagine it as a very polite family meeting where everyone can speak, everyone let other finish before having their say, and no one makes infinitely long sentences monopolizing the conversation.
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