The Internet

Computer Networks
Introduction
Until recently, getting a computer was mostly equivalent to getting a machine that would be used to perform office-related assignments and other calculations. This type of computer was commonly referred to as standalone. Nowadays, a computer by itself is not sufficient. It needs a way to communicate with other computers.

Networking
Because a computer can never be complete, it can complement itself by using resources that other, also incomplete, computers have. In order for two computers to share what they have, they must establish some type of communication. This is easily done using a cable and an appropriate object (a network card, also called NIC) inserted in each computer. This means that a cable would go from this object of one computer to the same type of object on the other computer (In the illustration below, we are using an object between the computers, this object is called a hub. It is perfectly possible to connect two computers using one cable that goes from one computer to the other but this works only if you have two computers. If you have more than one computer, then you use a type of intermediary object whose job is to "direct traffic". For example, when one computer A requests to use or open a piece of text that is located in a computer B but to print it in a printer that is connected to a computer C, this intermediary object is able to know what computer has the text, what computer has the printer, and what computer needs these two services. For these reasons, most connections use this intermediary object: the hub):
Only computers that are connected can share what they have. A computer A that is connected to a computer B can access what computer B has. When two or more computers are connected, the idea is to let them share and exchange what they contain. If the computers are small, like regular desktop computers, they may become overwhelmed and they may not have enough to share. The next step is to have a "bigger" central computer that holds even more things that other small computers would need (the word big here doesn't necessarily mean that this computer is physically big; it implies that this computer can do more things, for example it can perform more and faster calculations, than the other small computers). Such a central computer is called a server
, because its job is to serve other computers (these other small computers are then called workstations):

Once again, only a computer that is a member of this network can take advantage of what the network has to offer. If a computer is not connected to this network, it cannot access the information (and/or resources) of this network.
As information and resources (things to share) became more and more useful and in demand, servers of different companies started establishing types of connections among themselves, of course following some rules. In fact, in some situations, some big computers (servers) were made simply to provide information to other computers, without needing to know who owned these small computers, why these small computers needed this information, or what to do with them. The internet was born.