through 1969 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s

1957

• Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite. (1)

Figure 1, Sputnik I

1958

• President Eisenhower reacts by forming two government agencies to advance space technologies, weapons, and communication systems.

• Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) http://www.arpa.mil/ and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) http://www.nasa.gov are established. (2)

• SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) developed by ARPA could receive data from various detection and tracking radar systems, interpret data from unidentified aircraft and direct defensive weapons at incoming hostile aircraft. The SAGE machine could receive information continuously through the computer’s memory from telephone lines. (3)

Figure 2, SAGE human interactive computer

1960’s Formation of "Packet-switching" Technologies and History

1960

• U-2 Shot down in Russia (4)

1961

• Leonard Kleinrock of MIT writes first paper on packet-switching theory, entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets." http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/LK/Bib/REPORT/PhD/

• Russia puts first man in space. (5)

• Berlin Wall constructed. (6)

1962

• ARPA forms the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), which conducts research on command and control systems. (7)

• J.C.R. (Joseph Carl Robnett) Licklider (1990), http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/SRC/research-reports/abstracts/src-rr-061.html a behavioral psychologist and first director, emphasizes time-sharing systems, computer graphics, and improved computer languages. (8)

Figure 3, Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (1990)

• Along with Wesley Clark, MIT engineer and developer of several systems, Licklider writes "On-Line Man Computer Communication" Galactic Network.

With federal grant funds, the office is directed to research technologies related to human interaction and distributed systems.

The following institutions collaborate as the project increases:

Carnegie-Mellon University
MIT
RAND Corporation
Stanford Research Institute
System Development Corporation
University of California at Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles
University of South Carolina
University of Utah. (9)

• U.S. space technology also develops. Elvis makes first satellite television broadcast via Telstar. (10)

1964

• Paul Baran at RAND develops packet-switching networks and produces several papers on distributed communication networks. http://www.rand.org/publications/RM/baran.list.html

Figure 4, Paul Baran

Funded by the Air Force, his systems are developed with a nuclear attack in mind, in which networks could switch to one another if one were destroyed. The goal was to build a robust communication network that could survive under adverse conditions. (11)

The system was analogous to a "hot potato" game. In fact, Baran and his colleague Sharla P. Boehm publish memorandum referring to the system as a digital routing scheme "hot potato." (12)

1965

• British mathematician, Donald Davies (2000) of National Physical Laboratory (NPL) also explores on the idea of networks sending pieces of data in units; thus he coined the term "packet."

Figure 5, Donald Davies (2000)

Though funding limited research, he envisions his system having commercial uses in: business, recreational activities, point-of-sale transactions, and even online betting. (13)

• ARPA sponsors study on "Cooperative network of time-sharing computers" and the first "Wide Area Network" (WAN) is created. (14)

1966

• Lawrence G. Roberts and Thomas Marill, at the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT publish "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time Shared Computers" which documents their computer networking experiments for ARPA. (15)

1967

• Lawrence G. Roberts at MIT establishes the first ARPANET plan at a meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Robert’s idea is to connect all of the time-sharing computers on to one another directly, over dial-up telephone lines. The functions of the computers would be connected to a "host" at each site. (16)

Figure 6, Lawrence Roberts

• At the Association for Computing Machines Symposium on Operating Principles in Gatlingburg, Tennessee, Lawrence Roberts presents a paper entitled "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication" which summarizes standards for the ARPANET network design. (17)

• Packet theory scientists come together from: ARPA, NPL, and RAND.

• Coincidentally the scientists, who were forming their own packet theories, unite at the Tennessee symposium. Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of National Physical Laboratories present a paper on a packet-network concept. Scantlebury told Roberts of the NPL projects and of Paul Baran of RAND, who had written several papers on communication networks. (18)

• Davies continues with his work and forms the NPL Data Network in Middlesex, England.

1968

• Proposals are made for ARPANET to begin the project.

• University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is granted Network Measurement Center contract in October.

• Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BNN) are awarded a million-dollar contract to build Interface Message Processors (IMPs).

1969

• The first ARPANET connections are made. Nodes (hosts) are set as BBN builds each IMP machine, which is a Honeywell DDP-516 minicomputer with 12K memory, set with 50 kbps lines, which AT&T provides.

• Node 1: UCLA (September)
• Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (October)
• Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (November)
• Node 4: University of Utah (December)

Figure 7, ARPANET map of first nodes

Charley Kline at UCLA sends the first packets; however, the system crashes as he types the letter "G" of "LOGIN."  Nevertheless, the error was corrected by the programmers at BBN.

Figure 8, Frank Heart (top left) and BBN team celebrate the creation of ARPANET.

• U.S. astronauts land on the moon. (19)

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Timeline:  through 1969 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s

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