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ARPAnet was a Department of Defense research project on survival communications in the 1960s. It created a computer network between research contractors, which was the beginning of the ARPAnet and the forerunner of the Internet. The ARPAnet spread quickly to other computer research facilities, and in 1971, an e-mail program was created. The @ symbol became standard in 1972, and in 1973, it was estimated that 75% of ARPAnet network traffic was e-mail. The ARPAnet was shut down in 1990, but the Internet was already widespread.
Before there was the Internet, there was ARPAnet.
ARPAnet began as a Department of Defense (DoD) research project on survival communications. In the 1960s, there was great concern about the possibility of nuclear war. Those responsible for planning such contingencies knew that nuclear explosions would severely disrupt radio transmission and reception, which would make command and control (C2 or C-square) of the military nearly impossible.
The DoD agency doing the very futuristic research was (and is) the DoD Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been variously known by the acronyms ARPA and DARPA throughout its existence. ARPA was interested not only in sustainable communications, but also in computer networks. By killing two birds with one stone, they created a computer network between their various research contractors, which was the beginning of the ARPAnet and the forerunner of the Internet.
Originally linking four research centers — UCLA, Stanford Research Institute (now SRI, International), UCSB, and the University of Utah — ARPAnet went live in 1969. Before that, a huge number of technical problems had to be solved, particularly how to get computers from different manufacturers and operating systems to communicate. This led to the now standard communication protocols, TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.
Information is still transmitted over networks today, as it was in those early days; it is broken down into small units called packets, which are sent via the least busy route, then reassembled at their destination. This routing of information can successfully traverse a network with significant damage, relies on no centralized control, and thus provides the “survival” communication model originally sought by the DoD.
The ARPAnet spread very quickly to other computer research facilities that had contracts with the Department of Defense, whether or not those contracts were with DARPA. In 1971, an e-mail program was created, and in 1972, the @ symbol became standard for indicating where an individual user was located. In 1973 it was estimated that seventy-five percent of ARPAnet network traffic was e-mail.
The ARPAnet has been surprisingly successful at one of DARPA’s secondary goals: increasing communication between its various researchers. Mailing lists have flourished overnight, on a wide variety of topics, not exclusively limited to computer science. One of the first and most popular mailing lists was SF-LOVERS, for science fiction devotees.
Soon universities that didn’t have DoD research contracts realized the need for such a network, and CSNET was born. Commercial service providers such as AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve soon followed and the boom began. When the adoption of http (hypertext transmission protocols) created the World Wide Web, the Internet was fully formed.
When the original ARPAnet was finally shut down in 1990, the Internet was so widespread that its disappearance went virtually unnoticed.
