Since 1940 when George Stibitz used a teletype machine in New Hampshire to connect with his computer in New York, networking has come a long way. The ARPANet was developed in the 1960s, and this expanded into the Internet...
Communication and Networking is a basic human instinct and propensity. Man has been doing it from the beginning, and man’s inherent sociability has inspired such coming together. When man devised machines to do his work, it was natural that he would put the machines together to get the best out of them. So, when man invented the computer and other devices and technologies, he put them together. This had many advantages: data transfer was easy; work distribution was possible; domain specialization evolved; data integrity was enhanced (loss of data at one console did not mean loss of data elsewhere), etc. Communications and Networking, in this context, means the putting together of many computers through some medium so as to enable them to work together and benefit from its attendant advantages.
Communications have been developing independently of computers. Telegraph and telephone, wireless and radio were developed much earlier than computers. Sophisticated satellites were being built when computers were in their infancy. So, when computers came along, these communications media were used in joining the computers. The primary reason of networking was fast and hassle-free data transfer, and even today that remains the primary reason.
Since 1940 when George Stibitz used a teletype machine in New Hampshire to connect with his computer in New York, networking has come a long way. The ARPANet was developed in the 1960s, and this expanded into the Internet in the ensuing decades. Various other forms of networking are in existence today. Thus, by its size, it can be categorized as: LAN, MAN, WAN; by its relationship, it can be categorized as: Client Server, Peer to Peer; by its specialized function as: server farms, storage area networks, process control networks, SOHO networks, etc. Without networking, computers cannot be used at their full potential.
In this section of the webdirectory, we provide comprehensive links to all types of Communications and Networking resources, technologies, gadgets, service providers, etc.