1967 - ARPA (now DARPA) begins meetings to discuss linking sponsored computers. (2, 194ff)
- use minicomputer at each node, Interface Message Processor (IMP)
- Honeywell DDP-516, a 16 bit mini
- Honeywell acquired these minis by acquiring Computer Controls Corp
- IMP and its software developed under contract with BBN Technologies

1969 - four ARPANET nodes running (2, 194)

1971 - 15 ARPANET nodes (2, 194)
-connect 23 hosts (9 PDP-10's, 5 IBM 360's, Illiac-IV, other minis, mainframes)

1972 Oct - Public APRANET demo in DC (2,194)

Store and forward packet switching (1, 290ff)

o First put forward in 1961 by Paul Baran at RAND Corporation.

- On Distributed Communications - 1964 stresses survivability

o Independently reinvented in 1965 by Donald Davies @ National Physical Laboratory, UK .

- Coins the term "packet switching."

- Recognizes similarity with older telegraph technology

Used switching centers to get telegrams from point A to B

Late 1800's: receive, write, resend

- Some original papers [pdf]

A Timeline

Technical Structure

Maps of evolving configuration

The Email Story

1. Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Basic Books, 1996).

2. Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

3. Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the Internet (Simon & Schuster, 1998). This is very readable with good information.

4. Chris Edmondson-Yurkanen, "'THINK' Protocols," http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/think/index.htm (Department of Computer Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, accessed 2004 Nov 5). Technical histories of the Internet and other network protocols.

5. Martin Dodge, "An Atlas of Cyberspaces: Historical Maps of Computer Networks," http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/historical.html (www.cybergeography.org, accessed 2004 Nov 4).

6. Stephen Segaller, Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet (TV Books, 1998).