[ih] turning off the ARPANET

[Miles Fidelman]

Roger Fradenburgh shared this, which I repost with his permission:

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Ah yes. I can't claim to have been involved with the Arpanet's birth, 
but I was in the thick of things when the DARPA/ISTO PM decided it was 
time for euthanasia.

It wasn't really "turned off" in the manner those words tend to infer - 
It would be more appropriate to think of it as having been disassembled 
over a period of several months. Jan Whitener, who I THINK was working 
at SAIC at the time, handled the user side of things, notifying various 
entities their connections were going away, so they'd best start making 
other arrangements. BBN handled the trunks and nodes as DARPA 
iteratively identified specific ones they wanted to retire (as in "stop 
paying for"), with Yours Truly acting in something of a PM role.

I don't recall the exact date the last IMP (or IMPs) went off the air, 
but along the way I relied heavily on our net analysis group to make 
sure what was left of the network could still service what was left of 
the user community. Once an IMP slated to be decommissioned was isolated 
(all trunks disconnected), it could be powered down and hauled away.

...So I guess it kinda was "turned off," but a chunk at a time, not all 
at once.
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-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In<fnord>  practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra