Where Did It Come From? In the mid-60's, Paul Baran of the RAND Institute was commissioned by the Air Force to study how to maintain command and control after a nuclear attack. The solution that Baran suggested involved a technology called "packet switching," which would allow a message on a network to find its destination via any route available. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) believed that Baran's theory would work and that such a network would not only fulfill the Air Force's original missions, but would also answer the agency's need for sharing information between its many research institutions. In 1969, ARPANET was born. What Did It Do? When ARPANET connected UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah, there were three things that users could do: log into a remote computer, print to a remote printer, and transfer files between computers. Even with this limited set of capabilities, the network was an instant success and more and more institutions clamored for connection. During its first decade, ARPANET truly lived up to its billing as an "experimental network." New applications and network protocols were constantly developed, tested, and deployed. In 1971, Ray Tomlinson of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman wrote the first email program and the ARPANET community adopted it immediately. Soon after the appearance of email came the "mailing list," an email format that created virtual discussion groups. One of the first such lists was SF-LOVERS, dedicated to fans of science fiction. Perhaps the most significant development to come out of ARPANET was TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. This set of network standards would not only replace ARPANET's original Network Control Protocol (NCP), but would also serve as the basis for the "network of networks" that was to follow and eventually render ARPANET obsolete. What Happened to It? As ARPANET aged, it grew at a steady pace, constantly connecting more computers and institutions, and adding new technologies along the way. In 1983, ARPANET converted its old NCP to the newer and more universal TCP/IP. This created what is known today as the Internet, since it allowed different networks (ARPANET, NSFNET, CSNET, BITNET) to be interconnected. The TCP/IP protocol is still used today. In 1990, a mere 21 years after its creation, ARPANET, with its slow data transmission lines, was disbanded by the Department of Defense. The other networks that had come together around ARPANET could handle the traffic more quickly and efficiently. ARPANET's disappearance caused almost no disruption in network traffic. And while it wasn't a nuclear missile that ended ARPANET, in the end, Paul Baran's theory of a decentralized network had faced reality and proved itself a success.