[ih] IMP at UCL (Was Honeywell 516 ARPANET IMP cabinet)

[Christian de Larrinaga]

If Jon's reply doesn't make it through to the list UCL have published a
memoire on Peter at
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/engineering/computer-science/about/about-peter-kirstein

This has a somewhat sanitised take on how Peter managed not to pay the
VAT. He did write up a fuller account of that story on his UCL blog
which I don't see up now. He related the story with much hilarity to me
over a coffee as we nursed our wounds following delivering a briefing on
IPv6 at the then DTI.

He's so missed. Christian


Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> writes:

> Someone associated with UCL (such as Jon Crowcroft copied here) can
> give further details/corrections, but this is my understanding:
>
> At the end of the ARPANET project at University College London
> (UCL), their IMP was decommissioned and basically ready for the
> scrap heap. There was only one problem: Since the equipment had been
> imported without any duty under a research agreement, and since
> returning it to the US would have been expensive and pointless,
> representatives of Her Majesty's Government was contacted to have the
> IMP officially destroyed.
>
> (I have this image in my mind of a warehouse where they temporarily store
> contraband before it is burned...)
>
> Jon can hopefully tell us more :-)
>
> Ole
>
>
> Ole J. Jacobsen
> Editor and Publisher
> The Internet Protocol Journal
> Office: +1 415-550-9433
> Cell:   +1 415-370-4628
> Docomo: +81 90 3337-9311
> Norway: +47 98 00 26 30
> Web: protocoljournal.org
> E-mail: olejacobsen at me.com
> E-mail: ole at protocoljournal.org

-- 
Christian de Larrinaga