[ih] Fwd: Happy 50th to PRnet, ARPAnet, and Internet!

[Greg Skinner]

Forwarded for Barbara

> From: Barbara Denny <b_a_denny at yahoo.com>
> To: Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2026 at 10:55:12 AM PDT
> Subject: Happy 50th to PRnet, ARPAnet, and Internet!
> 
> Today is the 5Oth anniversary of  the PRnet and ARPAnet demo using TCP/IP!!!
> 
> Don Nielson provided a writeup to the SRI Alumni Newsletter about the event.  He said I could post it here. Unfortunately i had to cut the last bit due to mailing list restrictions: a picture of the plaque at Zotts, some photos and a diagram.  He also sent me a compendium but it has too many photos in the file. 
> 
> barbara
> 
> 
> 
> 50th Anniversary of the First TCP Demonstration
> 
> By Don Nielson
> 
> Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the lifeblood of the Internet. It is the protocol, first defined in 1975, that enabled computer networks of dissimilar nature to seam together in ways invisible to its end users. That transparency and dissimilarity would extend over time to virtually all transmission media. It would also cover the world with a new, affordable web that would bring digital capability to everyone. Although bringing forth the modern Internet involved innumerable far-flung talents, there was one place and time where the Internet first saw the light of day—and SRI was involved.
> 
> It was August 27, 1976, and the new DARPA-funded packet radio project, the first mobile digital radio network, was linked through the 7-year-old wired ARPANET to its only hosts speaking TCP, one each in Boston and Los Angeles. The initiating terminal was in the West Bay foothills, and the bridge was the first TCP internetworking gateway located at SRI. Both the ARPANET and the PRNET had lots of contributors that made the connection possible, but SRI was the place of convergence for the PRNET, as it had been earlier for the ARPANET. testing had come to the point a real-life demonstration.
> 
> It was Ron Kunzelman, one of the SRI leaders in PRNET development, who suggested Rossotti’s (now Alpine Inn, also known to locals as Zott’s), a popular watering hole in Portola Valley, west of the Stanford campus. SRI’s mobile bread truck van, containing both a packet radio and a TCP-housing microprocessor, had radio visibility from Rossotti’s to a PRNET repeater node atop the ridge on which also sat the big SRI-Stanford dish. It was one radio relay to the gateway and satisfactory for the two networks to work fully in tandem.
> 
> The task chosen for the test was the delivery to DARPA of the monthly progress report on the PRNET, a very lengthy transmission. The test/demo was successful, and we buttoned up. It was just a slightly more noticeable day in SRI research that was promptly forgotten. Fortunately, and with little anticipation, I took a few pictures.
> 
> Almost exactly two decades later, as the digital world and the Internet blossomed, the inquiries began to appear around its genesis. One of these came to me from the IEEE Spectrum, and I was forced to dig out what I could find. In short, it led to that day at Rossotti’s and to a bigger demo that also included a satellite link and other gateways.
> 
> Somewhere along the way, a small bronze plaque appeared on the wall at Rossotti’s commemorating that event, later to be replaced by a larger one, shown here, placed now on the front of the building by the California Historical Society, according to a Rossotti’s manager at a recent event. The event saw me taking a few visiting relatives to lunch there, where I written story of that day. The aim was also to give the somewhat blustery account on the plaque some grounding. For my effort, I am now the proud owner of a Rossotti’s cap and not much else, except serendipitous memories. 50 years have gone quickly.
>