1970: A network is established
- An Arpanet network is established between Harvard, MIT, and BBN (the company that created the "interface message processor" computers used to connect to the network).
1971: Email
- Ray Tomlinson develops email in 1971. He also decides to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name. This later becomes the domain name.
1971: Project Gutenberg and the birth of eBooks
- Michael Hart begins Project Gutenberg dedicated to making copyright-free works available in electronic form. In effect, this was the birth of the eBook.
1973 Ethernet
- Bob Metcalfe develops ethernet technology.
1974 TCP/IP
- Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf develop TCP/IP.
1975: The email client
- John Vittal, a programmer at the University of Southern California, develops the first modern email program (MSG). "Reply" and "Forward" functions are added.
1979
- Usenet bulletin board is created to exchange information between two North Carolina universities.
- CompuServe is created as a service for computer time-sharing. Development for it began in 1969. By 1982 it is available for corporate use.
