Winter of '69: Computer Networking
Pre '69 1957: USSR launches Sputnik. US forms the ARPA 1958: Modulator-Demodulator ( MoDem ) . Researchers at the Bell labs invent the modem. modem converts digital signals to electrical (analog) signals and back. Thus enabling communication between computers. 1961: Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (May 31) First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory. "Packet switching is the breaking down of data into datagrams or packets that are labeled to indicate the origin and the destination of the information and the forwarding of these packets from one computer to another computer until the information arrives at its final destination computer. This was crucial to the realization of a computer network. If packets are lost at any given point, the message can be resent by the originator." 1965: TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet