The Prehistory of the Internet and its Traces in the Present: Implications for Defining the Field
Martin C.J. Elton, John Carey · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
This chapter describes how relevant the study of new media and telecommunication innovations, such as videotex, has been to research on developments around the Internet and the Web. It elaborates the distinctions between the Internet and the Web. Additionally, some of the more interesting links between research issues from long ago (in Internet time!) and those of significance today are explained. Online databases developed the initial designs for information services that would appear on the Web. CompuServe and The Source are the best-known ASCII videotex services. These videotex services provide links to other organisations with which the companies did business. The Internet was initially an infrastructure that efficiently transmitted data and at very low cost; fairly soon, it also became able to transmit asynchronous and real-time voice and video. The Internet community resolved the problem of interlinking disparate computer systems so as to produce new and synergistic wholes.