Just visit this quirky site, owned and maintained (as a public relations talking point?) by the Airlock digital design agency of London, UK.
All it really does is display the age of the Internet, to the minute, when you arrived at the page.
By Airlock’s reconing, the Internet was born almost 26 years ago — in 1983. Sounds like a long time ago… But, technically, they’re right.
The Internet’s own uber-reference, Wikipedia, confirms that date: “The first TCP/IP-based wide-area network was operational by January 1, 1983…â€
However, tech types will argue over the precise month, day and hour. And most of us who use the Internet today would argue that it didn’t really come of age as a global phenomenon until the mid 1990s. That’s when home and small business users first started using the Net, mainly for e-mail and to post rudimentary Web sites.
Nevertheless… We should all remember to wish the Net a happy 26th birthday when raise a glass to welcome the New Year At midnight on January 1, 2009!
