[ih] Question - reference source for formal decommissioning of ARPANET in 1990?

[Alex McKenzie]

 Here's a reference:  "Discoveries in Modern Science", James Trefil, Editor in Chief; Macmillan Reference USA, A part of Gale, Cengage Learning; 2014; Article titled "Internet" by Alexander A. McKenzie; pg 570.  The reference says "ARPANET had already been shut down in 1990."
Backstory:  During the late 1980's the US Internet backbone had shifted from ARPANET to the NSFNET, and access to NSFNET was provided by regional networks and by ARPANET.  New England was the last area of the US (lower 48) to have a regional network, but at the end of the 80's NEARNET was created by Harvard, MIT, and Boston University to fill this gap.  As soon as NEARNET was operational, DARPA (Col. Mark Pullen) told the last few sites being supported by ARPANET to get their IP service from NEARNET, and as soon as that was done ARPANET was terminated.
Cheers,Alex

    On Wednesday, December 2, 2020, 9:21:00 AM EST, Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com> wrote:  
 
 Mark Pullen might have some info re the last days of the Arpanet.  I've cc'd him on this email.
Steve

On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 9:18 AM Alex McKenzie via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

Unfortunately the reference Da in April 1998ve provides doesn't say that the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990.  What it does say is "DARPA took the first steps toward dismantling ARPANET in April 1988, with the announced intention of completing the job within 3 years."
Alex

    On Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 9:15:24 PM EST, dave walden via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:  

 I believe Alex McKenizie and I also say it in the following, if this is 
a good enough reference for the citation you want:

“The ARPANET, the Defense Data Network, and the Internet”, Encyclopedia 
of Telecommunications, Marcel Dekker, Inc., Volume 1, pp. 341-376. I can 
perhaps find a specific page number.


On 12/1/2020 8:56 PM, Dan York via Internet-history wrote:
> Question for this group… does anyone know of a source (preferably online) that says something definitive about the decommissioning of the ARPANET in 1990?
>
> As I mentioned some time back, I’ve been doing some editing of Wikipedia pages as a personal project during these pandemic days, and on both of these pages:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#History
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
>
> There is the statement:
>
>    "The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990.”
>
> This was flagged by another editor as “citation needed”. In searching around, I found many articles that made a reference to the ARPANET being decommissioned in 1990 (either in February or July depending upon the article), but nothing I would call “definitive” (or in Wikipedia lingo a “reliable source<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources>”). Most articles seem to be repeating info that probably came from other articles!  But nothing “official” that states that ARPANET ended in 1990.
>
> I searched in our own (ISOC) history docs. I found an ICANNWiki page<https://icannwiki.org/ARPANET> that similarly states at the end that the ARPANET was shut down in 1990 but again provides no source. I searched RFCs. I searched for early NSFNet documents that might mention it. I’ve found many articles (including from people on this list) about the birth and early years of the ARPANET, but haven’t yet found anything about its ending.
>
> Any suggestions or pointers?
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
> P.S. For the purpose of removing the “citation needed” flag, I added a reference on one of those links to a 2019 media article that mentioned the ARPANET ending in 1990, but that’s not a good reference and I’d like to replace it with something more definitive.
>
> --
> Dan York, Director, Web Strategy / Project Leader, Open Standards Everywhere<https://www.internetsociety.org/ose/> / Internet Society
> york at isoc.org<mailto:york at isoc.org> / +1-603-439-0024 / @danyork<https://twitter.com/danyork>
> <https://www.internetsociety.org/>
>
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