The Information Age is also called the Computer Age or the Digital Age, all of which are descriptive of components of the age to which the terms refer. It is the period of time during which people became able to transfer information quickly and freely as well as the ability to have access to knowledge instantly. The information age includes the advent of the personal computer in the 1970s through the growth and popularity of the internet.
Recommended Resources
A Brief History of the Internet
This thumbnail profile of the internet includes, as the title says, a brief history, beginning in the early 1960s, discussion of dialup modems, a glossary of internet terms, and links to other resources.
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html
The focus of this website is the history of the internet with issues such as what it was like in the beginning, the transition to widespread infrastructure, commercialization of the technology, and a timeline.
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
Computer History Museum: Internet History Exhibits
Contains a timeline of ARPA beginning in 1962, exhibits from that time on, including photographs of SAGE consoles, satellites, and key people in the formation and development of the internet.
http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/
Five Myths About the Information Age
Busts five myths about what we now know as the Information Age, including the myth that books will become outdated and that all information is now available online.
http://chronicle.com/article/5-Myths-About-the-Information/127105/
Information Age: People, Information & Technology
Consists of photographs from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History which addresses the Information Age. This is an exhibition which shows interactively how information technology has changed over the past century and a half, beginning with the telegraph.
http://photo2.si.edu/infoage/infoage.html
Roads and Crossroads of the Internet History
This internet history goes back further than most: to 1866. It discusses the advent of the Space Age with the launch of Sputnik, and the logical map of ARPANET.
http://www.netvalley.com/cgi-bin/intval/net_history.pl
The History of Computing Project
The History of Computing Project is a website that describes the history of modern computing. You can read articles about the major computing companies here including ATT and IBM. The site also has articles on the history of software including databases.
http://www.thocp.net
The History of the Internet in a Nutshell
Presents key milestones of the history of the internet, from 1969 to 2009. Topics include Arpanet, UNIX, email, Project Gutenberg, TCP/IP, the PC modem, the advent of the BBS, the earliest spam, the first emoticom, virtual communities, IRC, the launching of AOL, and the World Wide Web.
http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
The What, Why, and How of the 1988 Internet Worm
Chronicles the history of the first known worm (some say it was a virus) on the internet. It was written by Robert Tappan Morris, who was a doctoral student at Cornell and, more significantly, was the the son of Robert Morris, the founding father of Unix.
http://www.snowplow.org/tom/worm/worm.html
Contains 16 true things about the information age, including that all ideas are seen as controversial and that anything which is in demand will be counterfeited.
http://www.virtualsalt.com/infotrue.htm
