The Packet Radio Van was a van refitted by Don Cone at

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

, and equipped with technology that was used in the first two-way internetworked transmission on August 27, 1976, and the first three-way internetworked transmission on November 22, 1977; the latter of which is considered the start of the Internet.

Background

The van was created as part of

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 Adv ...

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 ...

project, which developed the world's first

mobile ad hoc network A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

. It was a mobile

packet radio In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital dat ...

laboratory that housed one of the PRNET radio nodes, to simulate the needs of in-the-field military to connect to the network. As DARPA further wished connect the disparate computers at its various contractors, and indeed globally, there was a push to test

internetworking Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interco ...

- connecting different communications protocols via the

Internet protocol suite The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

. The van played a unique role in the very first demonstration of the Internet.

Equipment

The van, designed by Don Cone, resembled a bread van and contained all of the equipment needed to be an ARPANET node via packet radio, including a DEC LSI-11. Other equipment included a shielded generator, flexible equipment racks, and air conditioning. Due to his contributions around that time, Cone was promoted to Research Engineer.

Transmissions

The first two-network TCP/IP transmission was between the van and ARPANET on August 27, 1976; the van was parked next to Rossotti's (now the Alpine Inn), a well-known

Portola Valley, California Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Val ...

biker bar, and wires were run to one of the picnic tables. The location was chosen as to be far enough from SRI in Menlo Park, California to be "remote" but close enough to have good radio contact. This first true

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

transmission occurred on November 22, 1977, when SRI originated the first connection between three disparate networks. Data flowed seamlessly through the mobile van at SRI in Menlo Park, California and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles via

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

, across three types of networks: packet radio, satellite, and the ARPANET. The van was also the site of the first experiments (primarily by Earl Craighill and Tom Magill) with

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of speech, voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms In ...

through ARPA's Network Speech Compression Program around 1977 to 1978. They focused on how to compress speech such that it still sounded "natural" and arrived in a timely manner. The phone in the van was a

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

phone.

Legacy

The van was parked unused for a decade in a back lot of the SRI campus until the planning of a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Internet in 1997 at the Internet Supercomputer Conference in San Jose, California. SRI employees Don Alves and Don Nielson cleaned, licensed, and replenished the van's radio and Internet equipment. The van was exhibited on the convention floor and was popular with attendees. SRI donated the van to the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

to prevent further deterioration. In 2007, the Computer History Museum presented a 30th anniversary celebration of this demonstration, which included several participants of the 1977 event.

References

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External links

SRI Mobile Van
at the