The ARPANET: The ancestor of the internet

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What is the name of the ancestor of the internet? When it comes to the origins of this network, one of the decisive influences was Vannevar Bush, not only for his ideas about hypertext, but also for his political and scientific work, since he promoted relations between the federal government of the United States, the scientific community American and businessmen. Due to these interactions, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) were created.



In 1957, the United States government formed the ARPA, a segment of the Department of Defence responsible for ensuring the United States’ leadership in science and technology in military applications. In 1969, ARPA established the ARPANET, the ancestor of the internet. During the 1960s, most protocols were developed so that computers on a network could connect to each other. It was about establishing common standards that would make up a universal language.

The Protocol used at that time by the machines connected to ARPANET was called NCP (Network Control Protocol or Network Control Protocol), but over time it gave way to a more sophisticated protocol: TCP/IP.

The origins of the ARPANET

In 1962, the psychologist and computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, begins to spread the idea of ​​”networking” and the concept of “Galactic Network” that he conceived as a globally interconnected network through which anyone could access from anywhere to data and programs. At the end of that year, Licklider became principally responsible for DARPA’s computer research program and thereby he convinced his successors Ivan Sutherland and Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts of the importance of the concept of “working in a network”. Licklider believed that computers could be used to augment human thinking and suggested that a computer network be established to allow ARPA researchers to communicate information efficiently.

The ancestor of the internet

It is in 1965 when Larry Roberts, a scientist at MIT, connects a TX2 computer in Massachusetts with a Q-32 located in California by means of a switched telephone line at low speed, that was the first computer network and the demonstration that computers could work together properly while connected, run programs, and retrieve data on the remote machine.

Meanwhile, Bob Taylor, director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) between 1966 and 1969, wanted to find an efficient way that would allow multiple IPTO workers to share computing resources. He picked up the old Licklider idea from a network and hired Larry Roberts to lead the project. Roberts would be the main architect of a new computer network that will later be known as ARPANET. Thus, the ancestor of the internet conceived, but wasn’t still born.

The technical challenges of the ARPANET

In August 1968, the U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, (DARPA) required the development of one of its key components: packet switches or “interface message processors” (IMPs). The messages should be sent in packets, that is, being divided into small pieces of information that would contain the destination address but without specifying a specific route to arrive, since each one would look for the best way to get there by the available routes and the recipient would reassemble all packets to reconstruct the original message.

Curiously, the National Physics Laboratory of Great Britain created the first experimental network in 1968. The following year, the United States Pentagon decided to finance its own project: the ARPANET, that sought to eliminate the existence of any “central authority”, so that the network could not be attacked. Therefore, it was thought of a decentralized network where each connected computer had the same rank and the same capacity to send and receive information. Consequently, in 1969 DARPA and the Rand Corporation developed a network without central nodes based on packet switching. The first network and the first host computer (server) in the United States were established at the University of California (UCLA). At the end of 1969, 4 host computers were connected together to the ARPANET. This was the origin of the Internet.

In subsequent years, more and more computers were connected to the ARPANET network. In 1970, the Network Working Group (NWG) ended the host-to-host protocol for ARPANET, called Network Control Protocol (NCP, network control protocol) and began to develop applications, standards and protocols such as telnet, ftp, voice protocols , etc. And new networks began to be created around the world, including linked satellite networks, packet radio networks, and other types of networks. However, there was a problem, these networks could not communicate with each other because they used different protocols for data transmission.

Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf then developed the first “File Transfer protocol” (FTP), it was a very simple protocol based on the electronic mail system, but it laid the foundations for the future of file transmission over the network. Then they designed a new protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The decentralized nature of the ARPANET and the free availability of TCP/IP-based programs was what allowed in 1977, other types of networks not linked to the ARPANET, began to connect. The first references to the Internet started appearing, such as “a series of interconnected networks, specifically those that use the TCP/IP protocol”. Internet is the abbreviation of Interconnected Networks, that is to say, linked networks, or network of networks. The implementation of the TCP protocol allowed the various networks to connect in a true network of networks, which is why Vinton Cerf is known as the father of the Internet.

The ARPANET as a non-exclusive military network

TCP/IP had been adopted as a standard by the American military. This allowed the military to begin sharing Internet-based DARPA technology and led to the final separation between the military and non-military communities. By 1983 ARPANET was being used by a significant number of operational and research and development organizations in the defence area. The transition from NCP to TCP/IP in ARPANET allowed the military segment to separate itself from the investigation segment. In 1983, the ARPANET military segment decided to form its own network called MILNET. And now, without military purposes, ARPANET opens the doors to universities, companies and all kind and institutions. From that moment on, ARPANET, and all its associated networks, began to be known as the Internet, the ancestor of the internet.

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