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.[1]
History edit
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. 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 [2] after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. [3]
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.[4]
During the same year, DARPA commissioned Dr. J.C.R. Licklider from Bolt, Beranek and Newman to lead the agency's research project to improve and maximize the use of computers for the military through the Command Control Center. Based on Baran's idea, Licklider envisioned 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 Information Processing Techniques Office. The IPTO became Licklider's office, which oversees a more advanced research project leading to the creation of ARPANET.[5]
ARPANET was supported by DARPA/IPTO because of the "promise offered by the computer as a communication medium between people, not as an arithmetic engine."[6] DARPA 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. These laboratories were connected upon the creation of ARPANET to enable exchange of ideas regarding their research activities.[7]