1.1.  APARNET

 

The earliest ideas of a computer network intended to allow general communication between users of various computers were formulated by J.CR Licklider of Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in August 1962, in a series of memos discussing his Intergalactic Computer Network Concept.  These ideas contained almost everything that the internet is today. In 1963 Licklider was appointed head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control Programs at ARPA, the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  He then convinced Bob Taylor that this was a very important concept. ARPA and Taylor continued to be interested n creating a computer communication network, in part to allow ARPA – Sponsored researches in various locations to use in part to quickly make new software and other results widely available. Taylor had three different terminals in his office, connected to three different computers which ARPA was funding: one for the SDC Q-32 in Santa Monica, one for Project Genie at the University of California, and one for multicast at MIT. This idea was the creation of the ARPANET.

The original design of the ARPANET

On a cold war kind of day, in swinging 1969, work began on the ARPANET, grandfather to the Internet. Designed as a computer version of the nuclear bomb shelter, ARPANET protected the flow of information between military installations by creating a network of geographically separated computers that could exchange information via newly developed protocols called NCP (Network Control Protocol). ARPA was a branch of the military that developed top secret systems and weapons during the Cold War.

 

The first data exchange over this new network occurred between computers at UCLA and Stanford Research Institute. On their first attempt to log into Stanford’s computer by typing ‘log with’, UCLA researchers crashed their computer when they typed the letter ‘g’. Four computers were the first connected in the original ARPANET. They were located in the respective computer research labs of UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. As the network expanded different models of computer were connected, creating compatibility problems. The solution rested in a better set of protocols called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol) designed in 1982. Under ARPANET several major innovations occurred: email to send simple messages to another person across the network, telnet a remote connection service for controlling a computer, and file transfer protocol (FTP), which allows information to be sent from one computer to another in bulk.

1.1.1.      Topology of ARPANET in late 1973

 

The ARPANET was the first wide area Packet Switching network, the eve network of what has evolved into the Internet we know and love today; it was developed by the IPTO under the sponsorship of DARPA. The UCLA Team was responsible for installing the IMP and creating the first APARNET node.

·         In March 1970, the Consulting Company Bolt, Beronek and Newman joined the APARNET

·         September 1971, the first Terminal Interface Protocol (TIP) was deployed

·         In 1972 there were 24 sites on the APARNET

·         By the end of 1973 there were 37 sites on the ARPANET

·         In June 1974n there were 62 computers connected to the ARPANET

·         1977 there were 111 computers connected to the APARNET

·         1983 an unclassified military only network called MILNET split off from the APARNET

·         1985 there were ARPARNET gateways to external networks across North America, Europe and in Australia, and the Internet was global in scope.

·         1990 the ARPANET was retired in 1990, most computers that were connected to it were moved to networks connected to the NSFNET

1.1.2.      Connection of different Networks by Gateways