The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who
saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and
development in scientific and military fields. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a
global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it.
Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching,
which was to form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT
connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over dial-up
telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area networking, but also showed that
the telephone line's circuit switching was inadequate. Kleinrock's packet switching
theory was confirmed. Roberts moved over to DARPA in 1966 and developed his plan
for ARPANET. These visionaries and many more left unnamed here are the real
founders of the Internet. It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S.
government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANET. The original aim was to
create a network that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be
able to "talk to" research computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANet's
design was that, because messages could be routed or rerouted in more than one
direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the
event of a military attack or other disaster.
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