The ping commmand in cisco ios is divited into simple and extended ping. 

With simple ping you can ping one ip address. With extended ping you can use the ping for measuring many things other than simple conectivity between ip adresses. For example you can change the packet size.  A good webpage deschribing how extended ping works and the possibilities that you can use is

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a0080093f22.shtml

Ping is one of the most used network management and troubleshooting tool today and since 1983.It was written by Mike Muuss  and the name comes from sonar technology. A good article about ping is

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html?sess=4f8272bd1e5da03d1a16ba4a69452d93

Ping in Microsoft came along when Microsoft began with dos in the late 80s.  The best link that describes ping in windows systems is

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ping.mspx?mfr=true