The Invention That Made the Internet Possible
In this episode of ScienceLive, he tells the complete story for the first time, in his own words. It starts with a problem. J. Willard Marriott, founder of the Marriott Hotels empire, had 12 of IBM’s largest mainframe computers — the biggest the company made — and they still couldn’t keep up with reservation demand. IBM told him a 13th machine would crash the entire system. He needed a solution that didn’t exist yet. Dr. Billings invented one.
His concept was elegantly simple: instead of every computer trying to talk to every other computer simultaneously, create a dedicated “library” computer — what we now call a server — that any number of users could query independently. The result was a system that could scale to an unlimited number of users without overloading. He called it Universal Networking, patented it as U.S. Patent No. 4,714,989, and proved it worked by installing it at real businesses around the world using the Billings Microcomputer — one of the earliest personal computers ever built.
Today, every website, every app, and every internet transaction runs on this same client-server principle.
This is the story of one of the most important and least-known inventions of the 20th century — told by the man who invented it.
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so fun to watch!
These videos are so much fun, cant wait to tune in next Wednesday!!!
I love how even before Mr. Marriott asked Dr. Roger Billings to help with the hotel room booking computer, he was already helping to fix the issue by working on a way to connect all of the computers .
Keep up the good work Dr. Roger Billings.
Hello science is amazing
very cool. Its really cool because this is how we are able to play games or learn with the internet
Wow the internet is cool
i dont know what i would do without the internet!
I loooovvve Acellus Science Live so so soooo much. 😉
It’s insane how big computers used to be, now we got tiny raspberry pi computers that can fit in your hand
Its soo amazing how everything can be improved on.
Very interesting.
This was a very interesting episode! It is so amazing that Dr. Billings had such a huge part in the technology that we use on a daily basis!
The internet is such a useful tool!
this was a very cool and interesting science live.
I love science live!!
This is so cool!
Thank you, Dr. Billings for your sacrifices!
I love science live.
This was great
I just wanted to thank you for offering the scholarships! The universal networking was such a great invention
Wow, it was so cool to hear how the internet was made!!! It is such a groundbreaking invention that changed the world, and I wouldn’t be able to even write this comment without it!
I can’t believe how enormous computers used to be and now they are so small!!
these videos are so much fun.
Super awesome science live!
This video was very knowledgeable thank you
I don’t think that I could live with out internet
I love learning different stuff each week.
Very cool and interesting science live this week nice job guys.
very interesting video.
I’m on the internet constantly and love it!
I loved this Science Live!
Another amazing science live!!
This was a great episode
Wow amazing episode!