
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area
packet-switched network
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. '' packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets consist of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used b ...
with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. The ARPANET was established by the
Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
(now DARPA) of the
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...
.
Building on the ideas of
J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
,
Bob Taylor initiated the ARPANET project in 1966 to enable
resource sharing
In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network.
It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another compu ...
between remote computers. Taylor appointed
Larry Roberts as program manager. Roberts made the key decisions about the
request for proposal to build the network. He incorporated
Donald Davies
Donald Watts Davies, (7 June 1924 – 28 May 2000) was a Welsh computer scientist and Internet pioneer who was employed at the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL).
During 1965-67 he invented modern data communications, including packet s ...
' concepts and designs for packet switching, and sought input from
Paul Baran
Paul Baran (born Pesach Baran ; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the do ...
on dynamic routing.
In 1969, ARPA awarded the contract to build the
Interface Message Processor
The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a r ...
s (IMPs) for the network to
Bolt Beranek & Newman (BBN). The design was led by
Bob Kahn
Robert Elliot Kahn (born December 23, 1938) is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the hea ...
who developed the first
protocol
Protocol may refer to:
Sociology and politics
* Protocol (politics)
Protocol originally (in Late Middle English, c. 15th century) meant the minutes or logbook taken at a meeting, upon which an agreement was based. The term now commonly refers to ...
for the network. Roberts engaged
Leonard Kleinrock
Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Kleinrock made several ...
at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
to develop mathematical methods for analyzing the packet network technology.
The first computers were connected in 1969 and the
Network Control Protocol was implemented in 1970, development of which was led by
Steve Crocker
Stephen D. Crocker (born October 15, 1944) is an American Internet pioneer. In 1969, he created the ARPA "Network Working Group" and the Request for Comments series. He served as chair of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Nam ...
at UCLA and other graduate students, including
Jon Postel
Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to Internet Standard, standards. He is known p ...
.
The network was declared operational in 1971. Further software development enabled
remote login
Remote administration refers to any method of controlling a computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone, from a remote location. There are many commercially available and free-to-use software that make remote administration ...
and
file transfer
File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protoc ...
, which was used to provide an early form of
email
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
.
The network expanded rapidly and operational control passed to the
Defense Communications Agency in 1975.
Bob Kahn moved to DARPA and, together with
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Robert Kahn.
He has received honorary degrees and awards that inclu ...
at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, formulated the
Transmission Control Program for
internetworking
Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks. Typically, this enables any pair of hosts in the connected networks to exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting sys ...
.
As this work progressed, a protocol was developed by which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks; this incorporated concepts pioneered in the French
CYCLADES
The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...
project directed by
Louis Pouzin
Louis Pouzin (born 20 April 1931) is a French computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He directed the development of the CYCLADES computer network in France the early 1970s, which implemented a novel design for packet communication. He was the ...
. Version 4 of
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
was installed in the ARPANET for production use in January 1983 after the Department of Defense made it standard for all military computer networking.
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the
National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
(NSF) funded the
Computer Science Network
The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be ...
(CSNET). In the early 1980s, the NSF funded the establishment of national supercomputing centers at several universities and provided network access and network interconnectivity with the
NSFNET
The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The ...
project in 1986. The ARPANET was formally decommissioned in 1990, after
partnerships with the telecommunication and computer industry had assured private sector expansion and commercialization of an expanded worldwide network, known as the Internet.
Inspiration
Historically, voice and
data communication
Data communication, including data transmission and data reception, is the transfer of data, transmitted and received over a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel. Examples of such channels are copper wires, optic ...
s were based on methods of
circuit switching
Circuit switching is a method of implementing a telecommunications network in which two network nodes establish a dedicated communications channel ( circuit) through the network before the nodes may communicate. The circuit guarantees the full ...
, as exemplified in the traditional telephone network, wherein each telephone call is allocated a dedicated end-to-end electronic connection between the two communicating stations. The connection is established by switching systems that connected multiple intermediate call legs between these systems for the duration of the call.
The traditional model of the circuit-switched telecommunication network was challenged in the early 1960s by
Paul Baran
Paul Baran (born Pesach Baran ; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the do ...
at the
RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
, who had been researching systems that could sustain operation during partial destruction, such as by nuclear war. He developed the theoretical model of ''distributed adaptive message block switching''.
However, the telecommunication establishment rejected the development in favor of existing models.
Donald Davies
Donald Watts Davies, (7 June 1924 – 28 May 2000) was a Welsh computer scientist and Internet pioneer who was employed at the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL).
During 1965-67 he invented modern data communications, including packet s ...
at the United Kingdom's
National Physical Laboratory (NPL) independently arrived at a similar concept in 1965.
The earliest ideas for a
computer network
A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...
intended to allow general communications among computer users were formulated by
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
of
Bolt Beranek and Newman
Raytheon BBN (originally Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc.) is an American research and development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown Medal, in 1999 BBN received the ...
(BBN), in April 1963, in memoranda discussing the concept of the "
Intergalactic Computer Network". Those ideas encompassed many of the features of the contemporary Internet. In October 1963, Licklider was appointed head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control programs at the Defense Department's
Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
(ARPA). He convinced
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...
and
Bob Taylor that this network concept was very important and merited development, although Licklider left ARPA before any contracts were assigned for development.
Sutherland and Taylor continued their interest in creating the network, in part, to allow ARPA-sponsored researchers at various corporate and academic locales to utilize computers provided by ARPA, and, in part, to quickly distribute new software and other
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
results. Taylor had three computer terminals in his office, each connected to separate computers, which ARPA was funding: one for the
System Development Corporation
System Development Corporation (SDC) was a computer software company based in Santa Monica, California. Initially created as a division of the RAND Corporation in December 1955 (under the name System Development Division) and established as an ind ...
(SDC)
Q-32 in
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
, one for
Project Genie
Project Genie was a computer research project started in 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley.
It produced an early time-sharing system including the Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the SDS 940.
History
Pro ...
at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, and another for
Multics
Multics ("MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...
at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
. Taylor recalls the circumstance: "For each of these three terminals, I had three different sets of user commands. So, if I was talking online with someone at S.D.C., and I wanted to talk to someone I knew at Berkeley, or M.I.T., about this, I had to get up from the S.D.C. terminal, go over and log into the other terminal and get in touch with them. I said, 'Oh Man!', it's obvious what to do: If you have these three terminals, there ought to be one terminal that goes anywhere you want to go. That idea is the ARPANET".
Donald Davies' work caught the attention of ARPANET developers at
Symposium on Operating Systems Principles
In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...
in October 1967.
He gave the first public presentation, having coined the term ''
packet switching
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping Data (computing), data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. ''network packet, packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital Telecommunications network, network. Packets consi ...
'', in August 1968 and incorporated it into the
NPL network
The NPL network, or NPL Data Communications Network, was a local area computer network operated by the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom), National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London that pioneered the concept of packet switching.
...
in England. The NPL network and ARPANET were the first two networks in the world to implement packet switching.
Roberts said the computer networks built in the 1970s were similar "in nearly all respects" to Davies' original 1965 design.
Creation
In February 1966, Bob Taylor successfully lobbied ARPA's Director
Charles M. Herzfeld to fund a network project. Herzfeld redirected funds in the amount of one million dollars from a ballistic missile defense program to Taylor's budget. Taylor hired
Larry Roberts as a program manager in the ARPA
Information Processing Techniques Office
The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), originally "Command and Control Research",Lyon, Matthew; Hafner, Katie (1999-08-19). ''Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet'' (p. 39). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. was par ...
in January 1967 to work on the ARPANET.
Roberts met Paul Baran in February 1967, but did not discuss networks.
Roberts asked
Frank Westervelt to explore the questions of message size and contents for the network, and to write a position paper on the intercomputer communication protocol including “conventions for character and block transmission, error checking and re-transmission, and computer and user identification."
In April 1967, ARPA held a design session on technical standards. The initial standards for identification and authentication of users, transmission of characters, and error checking and retransmission procedures were discussed. Roberts' proposal was that all mainframe computers would connect to one another directly. The other investigators were reluctant to dedicate these computing resources to network administration. After the design session,
Wesley Clark
Wesley Kanne Clark (born Wesley J. Kanne, 23 December 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at United States Military Academy, West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the U ...
proposed minicomputers should be used as an interface to create a
message switching In telecommunications, message switching involves messages routed in their entirety, one hop at a time. It evolved from circuit switching and was the precursor of packet switching.
An example of message switching is email in which the message is s ...
network. Roberts modified the ARPANET plan to incorporate Clark's suggestion and named the minicomputers
Interface Message Processor
The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a r ...
s (IMPs).
The plan was presented at the inaugural Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in October 1967. Donald Davies' work on packet switching and the NPL network, presented by a colleague (
Roger Scantlebury
Roger Anthony Scantlebury (born August 1936) is a British computer scientist and Internet pioneer who worked at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and later at Logica.
Scantlebury led the pioneering work to implement packet switching and as ...
), and that of Paul Baran, came to the attention of the ARPA investigators at this conference.
Roberts applied Davies' concept of packet switching for the ARPANET,
and sought input from Paul Baran on dynamic routing.
The NPL network was using line speeds of 768 kbit/s, and the proposed line speed for the ARPANET was upgraded from 2.4 kbit/s to 50 kbit/s.
By mid-1968, Roberts and Barry Wessler wrote a final version of the IMP specification based on a
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...
(SRI) report that ARPA commissioned to write detailed specifications describing the ARPANET communications network.
Roberts gave a report to Taylor on 3 June, who approved it on 21 June. After approval by ARPA, a
Request for Quotation
A request for quotation (RfQ) is a business process in which a company or public entity requests a quote from a supplier for the purchase of specific products or services. RfQ generally means the same thing as Call for bids (CfB) and Invitati ...
(RFQ) was issued for 140 potential bidders. Most computer science companies regarded the ARPA proposal as outlandish, and only twelve submitted bids to build a network; of the twelve, ARPA regarded only four as top-rank contractors. At year's end, ARPA considered only two contractors and awarded the contract to build the network to BBN in January 1969.

The initial, seven-person BBN team were much aided by the technical specificity of their response to the ARPA RFQ, and thus quickly produced the first working system. The "IMP guys" were led by
Frank Heart
Frank Evans Heart (May 15, 1929 – June 24, 2018) was an American computer engineer influential in computer networking. After nearly 15 years working for MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Heart worked for Bolt, Beranek and Newman from 1966 to 1994, during ...
; the theoretical design of the network was led by
Bob Kahn
Robert Elliot Kahn (born December 23, 1938) is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the hea ...
; the team included
Dave Walden,
Severo Ornstein
Severo M. Ornstein (born 1930) is an American retired computer scientist and the son of composer Leo Ornstein. In 1955, he joined MIT's Lincoln Laboratory as a programmer and designer for the SAGE air-defense system. He later joined the TX-2 gro ...
,
William Crowther and several others.
The BBN-proposed network closely followed Roberts' ARPA plan: a network composed of small computers, the IMPs (similar to the later concept of
routers), that functioned as gateways interconnecting local resources. Routing, flow control, software design and network control were developed by the BBN team.
At each site, the IMPs performed store-and-forward packet switching functions and were interconnected with
leased line
A leased line is a private telecommunications circuit between two or more locations provided according to a commercial contract. It is sometimes also known as a private circuit, and as a data line in the UK. Typically, leased lines are used by ...
s via telecommunication data sets (
modem
The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...
s), with initial data rates of .
The host computers were connected to the IMPs via custom
serial communication
In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits a ...
interfaces. The system, including the hardware and the packet switching software, was designed and installed in nine months.
The BBN team continued to interact with the NPL team with meetings between them taking place in the U.S. and the U.K.
As with the NPL network, the first-generation IMPs were built by BBN using a
rugged computer
A rugged computer or ruggedized computer is a computer specifically designed to operate reliably in harsh usage environments and conditions, such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions. They are designed from incepti ...
version of the
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...
DDP-516 computer, configured with of expandable
magnetic-core memory
In computing, magnetic-core memory is a form of random-access memory. It predominated for roughly 20 years between 1955 and 1975, and is often just called core memory, or, informally, core.
Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magneti ...
, and a 16-channel Direct Multiplex Control (DMC)
direct memory access
Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system computer memory, memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU).
Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed i ...
unit. The DMC established custom interfaces with each of the host computers and modems. In addition to the front-panel lamps, the DDP-516 computer also features a special set of 24 indicator lamps showing the status of the IMP communication channels. Each IMP could support up to four local hosts and could communicate with up to six remote IMPs via early
Digital Signal 0
Digital Signal 0 (DS0) is a basic digital signaling rate of 64 kilobits per second (kbit/s), corresponding to the capacity of one analog voice-frequency-equivalent communication channel. The DS0 rate, and its equivalents E0 in the E-carrier system ...
leased telephone lines. The network connected one computer in Utah with three in California. Later, the Department of Defense allowed the universities to join the network for sharing hardware and software resources.
According to Charles Herzfeld, ARPA Director (1965–1967):
The ARPANET used distributed computation and incorporated frequent re-computation of routing tables (automatic routing was technically challenging at the time). These features increased the survivability of the network in the event of significant interruption. Furthermore, the ARPANET was designed to survive subordinate network losses. However, the
Internet Society
The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. It has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States, and Geneva, Switzerland.
Organization
The Internet Society ...
agrees with Herzfeld in a footnote in their online article, ''A Brief History of the Internet'':
Paul Baran
Paul Baran (born Pesach Baran ; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the do ...
, the first to put forward a theoretical model for communication using packet switching, conducted the RAND study referenced above.
Though the ARPANET did not exactly share Baran's project's goal, he said his work did contribute to the development of the ARPANET. Minutes taken by Elmer Shapiro of
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...
at the ARPANET design meeting of 9–10 October 1967 indicate that a version of Baran's routing method ("hot potato") may be used, consistent with the NPL team's proposal at the Symposium on Operating System Principles in Gatlinburg.
Later, in the 1970s, ARPA did emphasize the goal of "command and control". According to
Stephen J. Lukasik, who was deputy director (1967–1970) and Director of DARPA (1970–1975):
Implementation
The first four nodes were designated as a testbed for developing and debugging the
1822 protocol
The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a r ...
, which was a major undertaking. While they were connected electronically in 1969, network applications were not possible until the
Network Control Protocol was implemented in 1970 enabling the first two host-host protocols, remote login (
Telnet
Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...
) and file transfer (
FTP
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...
) which were specified and implemented between 1969 and 1973.
The network was declared operational in 1971. Network traffic began to grow once
email
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
was established at the majority of sites by around 1973.
Initial four hosts

The initial ARPANET configuration linked
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
,
ARC,
UCSB
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joine ...
, and the
University of Utah School of Computing. The first node was created at UCLA, where
Leonard Kleinrock
Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Kleinrock made several ...
could evaluate network performance and examine his theories on
message delay.
[ "Many of the theoretical studies of the performance and design of the ARPA Network were developments of earlier work by Kleinrock ... Although these works concerned message switching networks, they were the basis for a lot of the ARPA network investigations ... The intention of the work of Kleinrock n 1961was to analyse the performance of store and forward networks, using as the primary performance measure the average message delay. ... Kleinrock n 1970extended the theoretical approaches of is 1961 workto the early ARPA network."] The locations were selected not only to reduce leased line costs but also because each had specific expertise beneficial for this initial implementation phase:
* University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where Kleinrock had established a Network Measurement Center (NMC), with an
SDS Sigma 7 being the first computer attached to it;
* The Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute (now
SRI International
SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...
), where
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer, inventor, and a pioneer in many aspects of computer science. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
had created the new
NLS system, an early
hypertext
Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...
system, and would run the
Network Information Center (NIC), with the
SDS 940
The SDS 940 was Scientific Data Systems' (SDS) first machine designed to directly support time-sharing. The 940 was based on the SDS 930's 24-bit CPU, with additional circuitry to provide protected memory and virtual memory.
It was announced in ...
that ran NLS, named "Genie", being the first host attached;
*
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
(UCSB), with the
Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center's
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
360/75, running
OS/MVT being the machine attached;
*

The
University of Utah School of Computing, where
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...
had moved, running a
DEC PDP-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especi ...
operating on
TENEX.
The first successful host-to-host connection on the ARPANET was made between Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and UCLA, by SRI programmer Bill Duvall and UCLA student programmer Charley Kline, at 10:30 pm PST on 29 October 1969 (6:30 UTC on 30 October 1969). Kline connected from UCLA's
SDS Sigma 7 Host computer (in Boelter Hall room 3420) to the Stanford Research Institute's
SDS 940
The SDS 940 was Scientific Data Systems' (SDS) first machine designed to directly support time-sharing. The 940 was based on the SDS 930's 24-bit CPU, with additional circuitry to provide protected memory and virtual memory.
It was announced in ...
Host computer. Kline typed the command "login," but initially the SDS 940 crashed after he typed two characters. About an hour later, after Duvall adjusted parameters on the machine, Kline tried again and successfully logged in. Hence, the first two characters successfully transmitted over the ARPANET were "lo". The first permanent ARPANET link was established on 21 November 1969, between the IMP at UCLA and the IMP at the Stanford Research Institute. By 5 December 1969, the initial four-node network was established.
Elizabeth Feinler
Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler (born March 2, 1931) is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI International). Her group operat ...
created the first Resource Handbook for ARPANET in 1969 which led to the development of the ARPANET directory. The directory, built by Feinler and a team made it possible to navigate the ARPANET.
Network performance
In 1968, Roberts contracted with Kleinrock to measure the performance of the network and find areas for improvement.
Building on his earlier work on
queueing theory
Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. A queueing model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting time can be predicted. Queueing theory is generally considered a branch of operations research because th ...
and optimization of packet delay in communication networks, Kleinrock specified mathematical models of the performance of packet-switched networks, which underpinned the development of the ARPANET as it expanded rapidly in the early 1970s.
Growth and evolution

Roberts engaged
Howard Frank to consult on the topological design of the network. Frank made recommendations to increase throughput and reduce costs in a scaled-up network. By March 1970, the ARPANET reached the East Coast of the United States, when an IMP at BBN in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
was connected to the network. Thereafter, the ARPANET grew: 9 IMPs by June 1970 and 13 IMPs by December 1970, then 18 by September 1971 (when the network included 23 university and government hosts); 29 IMPs by August 1972, and 40 by September 1973. By June 1974, there were 46 IMPs, and in July 1975, the network numbered 57 IMPs. By 1981, the number was 213 host computers, with another host connecting approximately every twenty days.
Support for inter-IMP circuits of up to 230.4 kbit/s was added in 1970, although considerations of cost and IMP processing power meant this capability was not actively used.
Larry Roberts saw the ARPANET and
NPL projects as complementary and sought in 1970 to connect them via a satellite link.
Peter Kirstein's research group at
University College London
University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
(UCL) was subsequently chosen in 1971 in place of NPL for the UK connection. In June 1973, a transatlantic satellite link connected ARPANET to the
Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR), via the Tanum Earth Station in Sweden, and onward via a terrestrial circuit to a TIP at UCL. UCL provided a gateway for interconnection of the ARPANET with British academic networks, the first international
resource sharing
In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network.
It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another compu ...
network, and carried out some of the earliest experimental research work on internetworking.
1971 saw the start of the use of the non-ruggedized (and therefore significantly lighter)
Honeywell 316
The Honeywell 316 was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by Honeywell starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16, which includes the Models 116 (1965, discrete), 316 (1969), 416 (1966), 516 (1966) and DDP-716 (1969). They were commonly use ...
as an IMP. It could also be configured as a Terminal Interface Processor (TIP), which provided
terminal server
A terminal server connects devices with a serial port to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication. ...
support for up to 63
ASCII
ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...
serial terminals through a multi-line controller in place of one of the hosts. The 316 featured a greater degree of integration than the 516, which made it less expensive and easier to maintain. The 316 was configured with 40 kB of core memory for a TIP. The size of core memory was later increased, to 32 kB for the IMPs, and 56 kB for TIPs, in 1973.
The ARPANET was demonstrated at the
International Conference on Computer Communications The first International Conference on Computer Communications was held October 24–26, 1972 in Washington, DC at the Hilton Washington. It was organized by BBN Technologies under the direction of Bob Kahn and was one of the first public demonstrat ...
in October 1972.
In 1975, BBN introduced IMP software running on the
Pluribus multi-processor
Multiprocessing (MP) is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. Ther ...
. These appeared in a few sites. In 1981, BBN introduced IMP software running on its own C/30 processor product.
Networking evolution
IMP functionality
Because it was never a goal for the ARPANET to support IMPs from vendors other than BBN, the IMP-to-IMP protocol and message format were not standardized. However, the IMPs did nonetheless communicate amongst themselves to perform
link-state routing
Link-state routing protocols are one of the two main classes of routing protocols used in packet switching networks for computer communications, the others being distance-vector routing protocols. Examples of link-state routing protocols include ...
, to do reliable forwarding of messages, and to provide remote monitoring and management functions to ARPANET's Network Control Center. Initially, each IMP had a 6-bit identifier and supported up to 4 hosts, which were identified with a 2-bit index. An ARPANET host address, therefore, consisted of both the port index on its IMP and the identifier of the IMP, which was written with either
port/IMP
notation or as a single byte; for example, the address of MIT-DMG (notable for hosting development of
Zork
''Zork'' is a text adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson (programmer), Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company ...
) could be written as either
1/6
or
70
. An upgrade in early 1976 extended the host and IMP numbering to 8-bit and 16-bit, respectively.
In addition to primary routing and forwarding responsibilities, the IMP ran several background programs, titled TTY, DEBUG, PARAMETER-CHANGE, DISCARD, TRACE, and STATISTICS. These were given host numbers in order to be addressed directly and provided functions independently of any connected host. For example, "TTY" allowed an on-site operator to send ARPANET packets manually via the
teletype
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations.
Init ...
connected directly to the IMP.
1822 protocol
The starting point for host-to-host communication on the ARPANET in 1969 was the
1822 protocol
The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a r ...
, which defined the transmission of messages to an IMP. The message format was designed to work unambiguously with a broad range of computer architectures. An 1822 message essentially consisted of a message type, a numeric host address, and a data field. To send a data message to another host, the transmitting host formatted a data message containing the destination host's address and the data message being sent, and then transmitted the message through the 1822 hardware interface. The IMP then delivered the message to its destination address, either by delivering it to a locally connected host, or by delivering it to another IMP. When the message was ultimately delivered to the destination host, the receiving IMP would transmit a ''Ready for Next Message'' (RFNM) acknowledgment to the sending, host IMP.
Network Control Protocol
Unlike modern Internet datagrams, the ARPANET was designed to reliably transmit 1822 messages, and to inform the host computer when it loses a message; the contemporary
IP is unreliable, whereas the
TCP is reliable. Nonetheless, the 1822 protocol proved inadequate for handling multiple connections among different applications residing in a host computer. This problem was addressed with the
Network Control Protocol (NCP), which provided a standard method to establish reliable, flow-controlled, bidirectional communications links among different processes in different host computers. The NCP interface allowed
application software
Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...
to connect across the ARPANET by implementing higher-level
communication protocols
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics, and synchronization of ...
, an early example of the ''protocol layering'' concept later incorporated in the
OSI model
The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a reference model developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that "provides a common basis for the coordination of standards development for the purpose of systems inter ...
.
NCP was developed under the leadership of
Steve Crocker
Stephen D. Crocker (born October 15, 1944) is an American Internet pioneer. In 1969, he created the ARPA "Network Working Group" and the Request for Comments series. He served as chair of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Nam ...
, then a graduate student at UCLA. Crocker created and led the Network Working Group (NWG) which was made up of a collection of graduate students at universities and research laboratories, including
Jon Postel
Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to Internet Standard, standards. He is known p ...
and
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Robert Kahn.
He has received honorary degrees and awards that inclu ...
at UCLA. They were sponsored by ARPA to carry out the development of the ARPANET and the software for the host computers that supported applications.
TCP/IP
Stephen J. Lukasik directed DARPA to focus on internetworking research in the early 1970s. Bob Kahn moved from BBN to DARPA in 1972, first as program manager for the ARPANET, under Larry Roberts, then as director of the IPTO when Roberts left to found
Telenet
Telenet was an American commercial packet-switched network which went into service in 1975. It was the first FCC-licensed public data network in the United States. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lin ...
. Kahn worked on both satellite packet networks and ground-based radio packet networks, and recognized the value of being able to communicate across both. Steve Crocker, now at DARPA, and the leaders of British and French network projects founded the
International Network Working Group The International Network Working Group (INWG) was a group of prominent computer science researchers in the 1970s who studied and developed Standardization, standards and communication protocol, protocols for interconnection of computer networks. Se ...
in 1972 and, on Crocker's recommendation,
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Robert Kahn.
He has received honorary degrees and awards that inclu ...
, now on the faculty at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, became its Chair.
This group considered how to interconnect packet switching networks with different specifications, that is,
internetworking
Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks. Typically, this enables any pair of hosts in the connected networks to exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting sys ...
. Research led by Kahn and Cerf resulted in the formulation of the
Transmission Control Program,
which incorporated concepts from the French
CYCLADES
The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...
project directed by
Louis Pouzin
Louis Pouzin (born 20 April 1931) is a French computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He directed the development of the CYCLADES computer network in France the early 1970s, which implemented a novel design for packet communication. He was the ...
.
Its specification was written by Cerf with
Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine at Stanford in December 1974 (). The following year, testing began through concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN and
University College London
University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
.
At first a monolithic design, the software was redesigned as a modular protocol stack in version 3 in 1978.
Version 4 was installed in the ARPANET for production use in January 1983, replacing NCP. The development of the complete
Internet protocol suite
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
by 1989, as outlined in and , and
partnerships with the telecommunication and computer industry laid the foundation for the adoption of TCP/IP as a comprehensive protocol suite as the core component of the emerging
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
.
Operation
ARPA was intended to fund advanced research. The ARPANET was a research project that was communications-oriented, rather than user-oriented in design.
Nonetheless, in the summer of 1975, operational control of the ARPANET passed to the
Defense Communications Agency.
At about this time, the first
ARPANET encryption devices were deployed to support classified traffic. The ''ARPANET Completion Report'', written in 1978 and published in 1981 jointly by BBN and
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
, concludes that:
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the
National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
(NSF) funded the
Computer Science Network
The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be ...
(CSNET).
The transatlantic connectivity with NORSAR and UCL later evolved into the
SATNET
SATNET, also known as the Atlantic Packet Satellite Network, was an early satellite network that formed an initial segment of the Internet. It was implemented by BBN Technologies under the direction of ARPA.
The first heterogeneous computer ...
. The ARPANET, SATNET and
PRNET
The Packet Radio Network (PRNET) was a set of early, experimental mobile ad hoc networks whose technologies evolved over time. It was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Major participants in the project included BBN Technol ...
were interconnected in 1977. The DoD made
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
the standard
communication protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer science), sem ...
for all military computer networking in 1980. NORSAR and University College London left the ARPANET and began using TCP/IP over SATNET in 1982.
On January 1, 1983, known as
flag day
A flag day is a flag-related holiday, a day designated for flying a certain flag (such as a national flag) or a day set aside to celebrate a historical event such as a nation's adoption of its flag.
Flag days are usually codified in national s ...
, TCP/IP protocols became the standard for the ARPANET, replacing the earlier Network Control Protocol.
In September 1984 work was completed on restructuring the ARPANET giving U.S. military sites their own Military Network (
MILNET) for unclassified defense department communications. Both networks carried unclassified information and were connected at a small number of controlled
gateways which would allow total separation in the event of an emergency. MILNET was part of the
Defense Data Network (DDN). Separating the civil and military networks reduced the 113-node ARPANET by 68 nodes. After MILNET was split away, the ARPANET would continue to be used as an Internet backbone for researchers, but be slowly phased out.
Applications
NCP provided a standard set of network services that could be shared by several applications running on a single host computer. This led to the evolution of ''application protocols'' that operated, more or less, independently of the underlying network service, and permitted independent advances in the underlying protocols.
The various application protocols such as
TELNET
Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...
for remote time-sharing access and
File Transfer Protocol
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and d ...
(FTP), the latter used to enable rudimentary electronic mail, were developed and eventually ported to run over the TCP/IP protocol suite. In the 1980s, FTP for email was replaced by the
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typ ...
and, later,
POP
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Pop music, a musical genre
Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop! (British group), a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Album ...
and
IMAP
In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by .
IMAP was designed with the goal of per ...
.
Telnet was developed in 1969 beginning with RFC 15, extended in RFC 855.
The original specification for the File Transfer Protocol was written by
Abhay Bhushan and published as on 16 April 1971. By 1973, the
File Transfer Protocol
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and d ...
(FTP) specification had been defined () and implemented, enabling file transfers over the ARPANET.
In 1971,
Ray Tomlinson
Raymond Samuel Tomlinson (April 23, 1941 – March 5, 2016) was an American computer scientist who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971; it was the first system able to send mail betw ...
, of BBN sent the first network
e-mail
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
(, ).
An ARPA study in 1973, a year after network e-mail was introduced to the ARPANET community, found that three-quarters of the traffic over the ARPANET consisted of email messages. E-mail remained a very large part of the overall ARPANET traffic.
The
Network Voice Protocol
The Network Voice Protocol (NVP) was a pioneering computer network protocol for transporting human speech over packetized communications networks. It was an early example of Voice over Internet Protocol technology.
History
NVP was first defin ...
(NVP) specifications were defined in 1977 (), and implemented. But, because of technical shortcomings,
conference call
A conference call (sometimes called an audio teleconference or ATC) is a telephone call in which several people share a telephone line at the same time. The conference call may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the cal ...
s over the ARPANET never worked well; the contemporary
Voice over Internet Protocol
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables Voice call, voice calls to be tran ...
(packet voice) was decades away.
Security
The
Purdy Polynomial hash algorithm was developed for the ARPANET to protect passwords in 1971 at the request of Larry Roberts, head of ARPA at that time. It computed a polynomial of degree 2
24 + 17 modulo the 64-bit prime ''p'' = 2
64 − 59. The algorithm was later used by
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...
(DEC) to hash passwords in the
VMS operating system and is still being used for this purpose.
Rules and etiquette
Because of its government funding, certain forms of traffic were discouraged or prohibited.
Leonard Kleinrock claims to have committed the first illegal act on the Internet, having sent a request for return of his electric razor after a meeting in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
in 1973. At the time, use of the ARPANET for personal reasons was unlawful.
In 1978, against the rules of the network, Gary Thuerk of
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...
(DEC) sent out the first
mass email to approximately 400 potential clients via the ARPANET. He claims that this resulted in $13 million worth of sales in DEC products, and highlighted the potential of
email marketing
Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to s ...
.
A 1982 handbook on computing at MIT's
AI Lab stated regarding network etiquette:
Decommissioning
In 1985, the NSF funded the establishment of national supercomputing centers at several universities and provided network access and network interconnectivity with the
NSFNET
The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The ...
project in 1986. NSFNET became the Internet backbone for government agencies and universities.
The ARPANET project was formally decommissioned in 1990. The original IMPs and TIPs were phased out as the ARPANET was shut down after the introduction of the NSFNet, but some IMPs remained in service as late as July 1990.
In the wake of the decommissioning of the ARPANET on 28 February 1990, Vinton Cerf wrote the following lamentation, entitled "Requiem of the ARPANET":
Legacy
The technological advancements and practical applications achieved through the ARPANET were instrumental in shaping modern computer networking including the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. Development and implementation of the concepts of packet switching, decentralized networks, and communication protocols, notably TCP/IP, laid the foundation for a global network that revolutionized communication, information sharing and collaborative research across the world.
The ARPANET was related to many other research projects, which either influenced the ARPANET design, were ancillary projects, or spun out of the ARPANET.
Senator
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...
authored the
High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill", after hearing the 1988 concept for a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by
Leonard Kleinrock
Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Kleinrock made several ...
. The bill was passed on 9 December 1991 and led to the
National Information Infrastructure
The National Information Infrastructure (NII) was the product of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. It was a telecommunications policy buzzword, which was popularized during the Clinton Administration under the leadership of Vice-Presid ...
(NII) which Gore called the ''
information superhighway''.
The ARPANET project was honored with two
IEEE Milestones, both dedicated in 2009.
See also
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References
Sources
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Further reading
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** NTIS documents may be available from
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External links
*
*
* Timeline.
*
* Personal anecdote of the first message ever sent over the ARPANET
*
*
*
* : includes conversations with multiple individuals who influenced DARPA and early computer networks
{{Authority control
American inventions
History of the Internet
Computer-related introductions in 1969
Internet properties established in 1969
Internet properties disestablished in 1990
1969 establishments in the United States
Internet in the United States
1990 disestablishments in the United States
History of the University of California, Los Angeles