Melinda Cooper's Blog

What is TCP/IP? Taken directly from the dictionary, it is data transmission protocol: a protocol used for transmitting data between computers and as the basis for standard protocols on the Internet; TCP is short for transmission control protocol and IP is short for Internet protocol. It can also be used as a communications protocol in a private network. When you are set up with direct access to the Internet, your computer is provided with a copy of the TCP/IP program just as every other computer that you may send messages to or get information from also has a copy of TCP/IP.

It is named from two of the most important protocols in it; the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). Today's IP networking represents a synthesis of several developments that began to evolve in the 1960s and 1970s, namely the Internet and LANs, which emerged in the mid- to late-1980s, together with the introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.

The Internet Protocol Suite, like many protocol suites, may be viewed as a set of layers. Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. Upper layers are logically closer to the user and deal with more abstract data, relying on lower layer protocols to translate data into forms that can eventually be physically transmitted. The TCP/IP model consists of four layers; Link Layer, the Internet Layer, the Transport Layer, and the Application Layer.

I found a few interesting articles about TCP/IP; feel free to check them out.
TCP/IP Article 1
TCP/IP Article 2