[ih] ARPANet anniversary

[Craig Partridge]

>     > From: Dave CROCKER <dhc2 at dcrocker.net>
> 
>     > the live birth of the world we now call the Internet
> 
> Call me picky, but I do like to differentiate between 'the Internet' and 'the
> global communcation/information catenetwork'. The birth of the ARPAnet is, I
> think, the birth of the latter, but to me, not the Internet. (I.e. the entity
> which speaks TCP/IP - although it's not clear that definition of 'the
> Internet' is really the best definition, though).
> 
> Although the ARPAnet was clearly the forerunner, I think there are important
> distinctions, in particular the Internet's express intent to incorporate a
> wide range of disparate data communications subsystems into a tightly-coupled
> integrated entity.
> 
> And speaking of the Internet as a distinct entity, whats it's birth-day
> anyway? I would call it the first day on which a packet was sent from one
> host, across a particular kind of network, through a router (or gateway as we
> called them back then), across another network, into another host. (That woul
> d
> have been a TCP packet, I guess - no IP back then!) So where and when was
> that?

First TCP running over a single network by 1975.  First router c. first
half of 1976 (Ginny Strazisar implemented it and she joined BBN in 1975).
By late 1976 the proto-Internet had three routers active (one at BBN,
one at SRI and one at UCL).

Thanks!

Craig