that's nice
I wouldn't try to convince you that the Internet was designed in the '50s, seeing as how it wasn't designed in the '50s. Don't know how you managed to jump to such a remarkably wrong conclusion, but I'm hardly surprised by now.
The internet isn't just a data format.
Well, actually, the Internet is a data format (are you picking up on the pattern here?). What you're missing is that the Internet is made possible by the idea of interoperability, and it achieves interoperability by requiring all of the equipment connected to it to use the TCP/IP protocol. The Internet isn't an assemblage of equipment, because the equipment is interchangeable because it uses the same protocol. The equipment can change, and it's changing constantly, but the Internet remains.
It's not such a Zen-like puzzle, Epi. It's kind of like the way that the cells in your body are constantly being replaced, yet you remain. The continuity of an organism is provided by DNA, and--guess what?--the Internet's DNA is the TCP/IP protocol. Just as DNA controls the shape of the cells that can be part of your body, TCP/IP determines the shape of the equipment that can be connected to the Internet.
Deep, huh?