ARPANET

ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) originally created by a small team of research expert that was funded by the ARPA of the United States Department of Defense. ARPANET is the original and first wide packet-switching network.

Historical Background

The Creation of ARPA/DARPA

During the cold war between the United States and Soviet Union, both countries are building nuclear missiles and preparing for a possible attack. The United States government was primarily concerned on finding ways to protect the military communications system and it is focused on finding ways to make its command and control network to survive a nuclear attack.

In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower instructed the creation of the Advance Research Project Agency (ARPA) which later became DARPA after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957.

Paul Baran's Packet Switching: The Basis ARPANET

The basis of the academic research for the ARPANET started with Paul Baran, a researcher from RAND, Inc. and one of the fathers of Internet. In 1962, Baran suggested to "design a more robust communications network using redundancy and digital technology." His idea was dismissed by many however, Baran continued to work on developing his idea with colleagues at RAND. He envisage a distributed communications wherein a network of unmanned nodes will serve as switches that will route information from one node to another until it reaches its final destination. He later developed packet switching, a method of dividing information into "message blocks" before sending them out to a network. Each message block will be sent separately and will rejoined as a whole when reaching the final destination.

DARPA hired J.C.R. Licklider to Lead IPTO

During the same year, DARPA commissioned Dr. J.C.R. Licklider from Bolt, Beranek and Newman to lead the Information Processing Techniques Office which was mandated to further develop the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) program and build a first wide are computer networks for the cross country radar defense system interconnecting the three major Defense sites of the United States with the capability to survive a nuclear attack.

Licklider envisioned the project based on Baran's idea and method of packet switching. He also visualized a universal network that will allow people to communicate with each other using the commputer. He called the first group of computer specialist working in the research project as the Intergalactic Network. Licklider's interest in connecting the community through a computer network resulted in the creation of the ARPANET. He believed in the "promise offered by the computer as a communication medium between people, not as an arithmetic engine."

IPTO also funded several university research laboratories which include: Carnegie-Mellon University, Harvard University, MIT, Stanford University, UCB, UCLA , UCSB, University of Illinois, and the University of Utah. The agency also funded some leading research laboratories such as BBN, Computer Corporation of America, RAND, SRI, and Systems Development Corporation to perform advance research on computer network and technologies. In 1964, Licklider resigned from IPTO as Director and went to work for IBM.

Ivan Sutherland Became IPTO Director

Licklider was succeeded by Ivan Sutherland who developed the Sketchpad program which enabled computer displays to be saved and modified in a memory. He also developed computer graphics. Inspired by his predecessors' vision of universal network, in 1965, Sutherland awarded a contract Lawrence Roberts from MIT to develop the computer networking technology. Roberts worked with Thomas Merril and they were able to implement the first packet dial-up telephone connection exchange between a TX-2 computer at MIT and a Q-32 computer in California.

Robert Taylor Approved Creation of ARPANET

In 1966, Robert Taylor became IPTO director succeeding Sutherland. Greatly inspired by Licklider's vision of universal network, he lobbied for additional funding to be able to carry out a research project to achieve a distributed communication network. A one million dollar funding was promised to him by then DARPA Chief Charlie Hertzfeld if he will be able to organize the project. He was able to convince Toberts to join IPTO as Chief Scientist. On June 21, 1968, Taylor approved the Resource Sharing Computer Network Report, a plan to create ARPANET which was prepared by Roberts. ARPANET was officially developed on August 30, 1969. Lawrence Roberts became Director of IPTO the following month.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency