1969: Before and After Internet

The Saturn V Rocket

The 21st of July 1969 was a truly historic day for humanity ... it was of course when a human first stepped onto another world and spoke those deeply significant words 

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

The lunar landing was a crowning achievement of the industrial revolution that had made it possible and on that crown (the lunar lander) was a plaque that read 

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.

WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.

The scale of the project was like nothing before and defined by the Saturn V rocket and the spectacle of its launch ... 110.6m high, weighing 2,970,000 kg and using 20 tons  of fuel per second the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status.

The Apollo mission didn't just carry humans it carried computers - two revolutionary digital computers without which the lunar landing would not have been possible. There were two Apollo Guidance Computers - one in the Apollo command module and one in the Apollo Lunar Module - provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidance, navigation, and control of the spacecraft. 

The Appollo Guidance Computer

Where the huge scale ot the Saturn V rocket symbolised pinnacle of the industrial revolution the tiny Apollo Guidance Computer symbolised the information revolution where progress is defined by how small things can be made. 

The Apollo Guidance Computers had to be small and light -  they were the first personal computers and their development laid the foundations of modern computing - the use of integrated circuits, software engineering, real-time operation and user interfaces. One example of the incredible innovation at the time was how the computer would give a set of co-ordinates that could be used with markings on the window for Neil Armstrong to see the landing site ahead .. it was in a way a form of augmented reality ... incredible.

1969 didn't just mark the pinacle of the industrial revolution with and the start of the information age it also marked the beginning the Internet.

On the 29th October 1969 the first message between two computers was sent across an interconnected computer network ... The ARPANET
"Do you see the L?"
"Yes, we see the L," came the response.
We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O."
"Yes, we see the O."
Then we typed the G, and the system crashed ...

Yet a revolution had begun" 

The rest so they say is history as the ARPANET was replaced with The Internet.