For the first time in human history, almost everyone has the capability of connecting with anyone in a matter of seconds on a worldwide network. In sixty seconds, this network on average has over 204 million emails sent, 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube, 15,000 songs downloaded on iTunes, 1.4 million minutes of communication on Skype, and over 278,000 status updates posted on Twitter. This worldwide network is popularly called the internet. The internet became widely available in the late 1990’s, but it existed long before the public could use it. The first wide area network and application of the modern internet was invented and deployed in 1969. ARPANET was one of the first networks that contributed to the modern internet and it was incredibly challenging to build.

ARPANET was created by an United States government agency called the Advanced Research Projects Agency. This agency was established by President Eisenhower during the cold war, and had to work closely with the president and the secretary of defense to advance United States defense technologies. ARPANET was created by hundreds of individuals working in harmony with the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Electrical engineers, computer scientists, applied mathematicians, and graduate students made up the incredibly diverse team that created ARPANET. Four universities including UCLA, Stanford, University of California Culler-Fried, and University of Utah were going to make up the world’s first wide area network. Acoustics consulting firm Bolt, Beranek, and Newman designed the networking equipment needed to connect ARPANET. The team creating ARPANET had several goals to achieve.

ARPANET had two main motives. The first goal was to increase the world’s overall computer power. At the time, there very few powerful computers. These computers were also very large and very few people had access to them. By connecting powerful computers together, more people could access them and several computers could be combined to increase computing power. The second motive was to decentralize information storage (Strickland). In case of a catastrophic event, ARPANET would make it possible for information to be distributed across a wide area. Information would still be intact even if one computer was destroyed. To achieve their goals they had to create a revolutionary computer called an Interface Message Processor.

In order to connect the four universities the ARPANET team had to create new networking equipment that transmitted data over existing telephone lines. This special networking processor was called the Interface Message Processor, IMP for short. In modern terms, an IMP acted as a modem. Each computer needed to be connected to an IMP so it could talk to other computers across the network. The IMP solved a very complicated problem with networking at the time by making it possible for multiple computer to talk to each other. Each of the four computers connected on ARPANET had a different operating system and spoke a different language. The IMP translated the language that each computer was using, and made it possible for the computers on the network to talk to each other. After the team laid the groundwork for ARPANET, humanity never used computers the same way again.

ARPANET enabled people to use computers in a ways that has ever been done before and made several breakthroughs in technology that contributed to the modern internet. For the first time ever scientists and researchers could access powerful computers and databases of information, without physically traveling to a computer site. This enabled scientists and researchers to do more research and challenging experiments. ARPANET also made it possible for users to access information on other computers, as well as transfer files with other computers, which had also never been done before. ARPANET also implemented email, which everyone uses today. In 1972 an ARPANET programmer named Ray Tomlinson developed an electronic mail system program for ARPANET, known as Email today. The ARPANET team used the new email program to communicate with each other about ARPANET operations. Eventually some ARPANET engineers created illegitimate mailing lists and were reprimanded for using ARPANET in inappropriate ways.

Ultimately, ARPANET was a very complex system that helped create the modern internet. It took hundreds of diverse and talented scientists to develop. It was the world’s first wide area network that transmitted information and data. It increased overall computer power and decentralized information storage. It also changed the way people use computers. It allowed scientists and researchers to do things with computers that have never been done before. ARPANET also made it possible for more people to use powerful computers. Most importantly, it gave birth to the modern internet. “Between 1969 and 1977 ARPANET grew from four connected computers to 111 computers owned by universities” (Strickland). ARPANET also connected their network to other numerous network around the world. In the late 80’s ARPANET was starting to become outdated because more advanced private networks had been created around the world. In 1990 ARPA, then renamed to DARPA, discontinued ARPANET (Strickland). Although it was the end of an era, ARPA had met its goals, there was now a worldwide network spanning the globe, connecting computers and resources. Thus, the internet was born.