parlance that we’ve adopted) was established between the central unit and the set of input/output devices (called peripherals in computer engineering). In this model, which, by the way, is now the dominant model of modern personal computer architectures, the stand-alone computer is a network whose central unit is connected to one or more chains of peripherals, with each peripheral communicating independently, but in a standard way, with the central unit.

As of this writing, the dominant bus protocol is the Universal Serial Bus (USB), which most readers are familiar with since they use it with their notebook computer, their phone handsets, their cameras, and other devices, on a daily basis. As we’ll see, the universal serial bus, as it turned out, would be central to an evolutionary event of personal electronic devices, whose trusted cores have been from their inception peripherals.

In the 1960’s, transmitting information between computers essentially meant carrying a large, magnetic tape from one computer to the next. Considering the future ramifications, this approach clearly wasn’t right. So in the 1970’s, computer networking came of age; first, as we would expect, on a local basis, and then on a global one.

Locally, the issue was to link the computers in a computer room, or, to extend the problem a little, in, say, a building. While early solutions were specific to each vendor and would not allow computers from different brands, or often, computers from the same brand but of different models, to communicate, a breakthrough was looming. The local networking revolution was brought by Ethernet, a way to put many computers on a single loop, where computers would interact in exactly the same way as people in a room. In this network architecture, everybody listens to everybody. When silence occurs, somebody can talk. Of course, we all know that what happens then is that two people always seem to start talking at the same time. Well, if that happens, something has to give. So each of the would be talkers pauses, and hopefully, the pauses will be of different lengths, so when the first person starts talking again, the second person will have an opportunity to hear that and will refrain from talking until there is silence again.

Do that real fast and with computers and you have the Ethernet. All computers can now understand each other at a basic level, and nowadays, you’re not thinking that this is nothing short of a miracle that you just plug your brand new computer into a network and it tells you immediately that the connection is already ready. If you’re using a computer at home or at work, you are using Ethernet to communicate with others in the vicinity.

The concept of a local network based on the Ethernet was so strong that today, about all local networks are Ethernet based, whether wired or wireless, and the increase in speed in the Ethernet network has exceeded all expectations, to the point that each time a new technology tried to position itself beyond the expected limits of Ethernet, it was leapfrogged before having time to establish itself. In time Ethernet would become so important that it would find a place in even the close world of computer to peripheral communications.

While computer rooms and buildings full of computers were being wired for local communications, the next challenge was to interconnect those very buildings and computer rooms, first inside companies or institutions, and then even between those larger conglomerates. This is where the Internet comes into play. As its very name implies, the idea was to interconnect networks. In the local network, all devices know each other by name, just as the family or the tribe can satisfy itself with first names or patronyms. However, when the tribes assemble, last names are introduced. In the same way, interconnection of networks required global naming capabilities so that every computer on the global network could be addressed individually. Additionally, the

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