ARPANET
Map, Cold War, First Message, & History
ARPANET
ARPANET, in full Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, experimental computer network that was the forerunner of the Internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an arm of the U.S. Defense Department, funded the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in the late 1960s. Its initial purpose was to link computers at Pentagon-funded research institutions over telephone lines.
At the height of the Cold War, military commanders were seeking a computer communications system without a central core, with no headquarters or base of operations that could be attacked and destroyed by enemies thus blacking out the entire network in one fell swoop. ARPANET’s purpose was always more academic than military, but, as more academic facilities connected to it, the network did take on the tentacle-like structure military officials had envisioned. The Internet essentially retains that form, although on a much larger scale.
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