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

[Brian E Carpenter]

Christian,

This may not be exactly what you're referring to, but this goes into details about the regulatory problems and workarounds in importing the equipment:

P. T. Kirstein, "Early experiences with the Arpanet and Internet in the United Kingdom," in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 38-44, Jan.-March 1999, doi: 10.1109/85.759368

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/759368

Unfortunately it's paywalled.

Regards/Ngā mihi
    Brian Carpenter

On 26-Aug-25 21:15, Christian de Larrinaga via Internet-history wrote:
> 
> 
> 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
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>> E-mail: ole at protocoljournal.org
>