Dream network

Today is the 35th anniversary of the day the first node in the ARPANET (at UCLA) sent a message to another computer.  Next month will be the anniversary of the day that first node talked to the second node. 

And what was the first message sent from one node to the other?  It wasn't “was hath God wrought.”  It was one computer saying LOG and the second receiving LOG and adding IN — so they'd have LOGIN.

In Leonard Kleinrock's words:

We sent an L; - did you get the L;? YEP

We sent an O; - did you get the O;? YEP

We sent a G; - did you get the G;? CRASH!

That was the first message on the internet.

Mitchell Waldrop's The Dream Machine, in a section titled “ARPA's Woodstock,” has Doug Engelbart saying the following on December 9, 1968: 

'The research program that I'm going to describe to you,' he began in that soft, strangely compelling baritone, 'is quickly characterizable by saying, “If, in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day, and that was instantly responsive to every action you had, how much value could you derive from that?”'

Happy many anniversaries.

September 2, 2004 | Filed Under main page 

Comments

One Response to “Dream network”

  1. Anonymous on September 17th, 2004 7:09 pm

    Have you seen Google's “20 year Usenet timeline” with notable early Usenet stuff (back to 1981)? It's at
    http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html
    –Tom

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