The Networked Turn
The network changed the computer from a room-sized tool into a place where people could meet.
The networked turn was not a single moment. It was a series of experiments in connecting machines that had been designed to work alone. Early networks were small and local, but they established a pattern: break messages into pieces, route them independently, and let the endpoints reassemble the result. That pattern made the network resilient and flexible.
As the network grew, computing became less about a single machine and more about the relationships between machines. New kinds of software appeared: electronic mail, file transfer, remote login, and eventually the web. Each one turned the network into a more ordinary part of daily life.