IEEE Milestone Inception of the ARPANET, 1969: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol

On November 13, 2026, Mark Nichols set IEEE Milestone No. 89, "Inception of the ARPANET, 1969," dedicated on September 16, 2009 for SRI International, against the dated documents of 1969 that the milestone itself lists and found that its title and its first clause name the network correctly, that its caption calls the Interface Message Processor a machine "used to interconnect ARPANET networks," which is false as written because Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. describes the IMPs as "a communications subnetwork through which hosts communicate with each other," and that its citation and body credit the ARPANET with the Internet in the soft verbs "laid the foundation," "set in motion" and "formed the foundation."

Preamble: I created this page to examine IEEE Milestone No. 89, "Inception of the ARPANET, 1969," whose plaque hangs in the Visitors Lobby of SRI International in Menlo Park, California, and whose page is served by the Engineering and Technology History Wiki. Unlike IEEE Milestone No. 94, "Birthplace of the Internet, 1969," at UCLA, Milestone No. 89 names the ARPANET in its title and lists documents of 1969 among its supporting documents, so this page reads two of those documents, RFC 1 and RFC 4, in full and tests the milestone's lines against them and against the contractor's own records. Each disagreement on this page cites the milestone's line by its number in Exhibit A in section 9.0 and names the dated document that decides it. ETHW, Milestones: Inception of the ARPANET, 1969 · IEEE Milestone Birthplace of the Internet, 1969: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol · Disagreements of Published Claims | Network, Not Protocol · The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. This page is Disagreement 74 in the standing index of the series, Disagreements of Published Claims | Network, Not Protocol, and a finding on this page is cited by that number followed by the finding's locus, as Disagreement 74, 1.1.

Opinion Rules: You are visiting my record, and I am the subject matter expert on it. If you are a subject matter expert too, I want to hear from you: bring your document and I will answer it on the record. If you are not, you are welcome here to read and to learn. The documented-challenge terms of marknichols.com and the condition on opinion are stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking, and they govern this page.

0.0 This section records the text this page examines, the documents this page read, the way the line numbers on this page are read, the definitions and rules the findings apply, the audit of the milestone as an authority, and the order of the sections that follow.

0.1 This page examines the page "Milestones:Inception of the ARPANET, 1969" on the Engineering and Technology History Wiki in revision 209093. The wiki's revision history records that revision 209093 was saved on August 31, 2026 at 15:52 (UTC), which is August 31, 2026 in Pacific time, by the account "Administrator1," with no edit summary. The page was read in full on November 13, 2026, and revision 209093 was then its current revision. The plaque itself was not photographed for this page, so this page reads the milestone's citation at lines 13 through 15 as the wiki prints it.

0.2 This page read the following documents, and it states for each document how it was read.

  1. The page of IEEE Milestone No. 89 in revision 209093 was read in full on November 13, 2026, as 0.1 records.
  2. RFC 1, "Host Software," by Steve Crocker of UCLA, dated 7 April 1969, which the milestone lists at line 36, was read in full on November 13, 2026 in the copy that the RFC Editor serves.
  3. RFC 4, "Network Timetable," by Elmer B. Shapiro of Stanford Research Institute, dated 24 March 1969, which the milestone lists at line 39, was read in full on November 13, 2026 in the copy that the RFC Editor serves.
  4. RFC 4677, "The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force," by P. Hoffman and S. Harris, dated September 2006, was read at its section 3.1, "Humble Beginnings," and its other sections were not read.
  5. BBN Report No. 4799, A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade, prepared for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency by Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. and dated April 1981, BBN Report No. 1890 of October 1969, Leonard Kleinrock's article in IEEE Communications Magazine of August 2010 and RFC 1009 of June 1987 are quoted on this page as sections 2.0 and 3.0 of Wikipedia Defines the Internet Protocol Suite: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol quote them.
  6. The UCLA Daily Bruin of July 15, 1969 is quoted on this page as section 3.0 of IEEE Milestone Birthplace of the Internet, 1969: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol quotes it.
  7. The other documents that the milestone lists at lines 35 through 49 were not read, and this page makes no finding on them.

0.3 Each line number on this page refers to Exhibit A in section 9.0. Exhibit A lists the text of the page line by line, in the order the page prints it, under the names of the page's own sections. Each disagreement also quotes the line it answers.

0.4 The capital-I Internet (D1) is the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc. An intranet (D2) is a network, at any scale and under any protocol, whose members join by an owner's permission. Internetworking (D3) is the technique of interconnecting distinct networks through gateways so that traffic originating on one network can reach hosts on another. Under D1.7, the words of lineage are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET, a government network whose users joined by permission. A lowercase internet (D11) is any interconnection of networks, including gated ones. Governing Definitions, D1, D1.7, D2, D3 and D11.

0.5 This page answers three kinds of disagreement, and each disagreement on this page names the kind that applies.

  1. A documentary contradiction occurs when a dated record conflicts with a line as written. This page answers it with the dated record and a dated correction.
  2. A scope overstatement occurs when the evidence establishes a narrower event, network, date or function than the line claims. This page answers it with the scope the evidence establishes.
  3. A definitional disagreement occurs when the milestone and this site apply different criteria to the same term. This page answers it by attributing each usage to its source.

A sentence that carries a soft verb, a verb or verb phrase that gives credit for an outcome without stating an act that a dated document can confirm or refute, is answered under whichever of the three kinds its documents decide, and it is recorded in the register at Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol. Governing Definitions, F57.

0.6 The milestone names no author. This page applies to it the five checks that Mark Nichols ruled on October 2, 2026, and extended on October 23, 2026, for every authority a page cites or disputes, and the five checks return the following results.

  1. The issuing body is the IEEE, and the page does not print the rule by which a milestone is proposed, reviewed and approved, so that rule is stated on this page as unknown.
  2. The roster on the date of the act, the dedication of September 16, 2009 that line 18 records, is named on the page only in part, in the words "with Internet Pioneer Vint Cerf amongst those officiating." The proposer, the sponsor and the members of the body that approved the milestone are not named on the page, and this record states them as unknown.
  3. The instrument is the plaque, which this page did not see, and the page prints no author and no recorded vote.
  4. The custodian of the text is the Engineering and Technology History Wiki, which serves the page as a wiki page last saved by the account "Administrator1," so the page is a living text, which is why 0.1 fixes it by its revision number.
  5. The overlap between the milestone and its officiants is recorded here as a finding. The milestone lists two documents by Vinton G. Cerf among its supporting documents, RFC 18 of September 1969 at line 41 and RFC 22 of October 1969 at line 42, and line 18 names Vint Cerf among those who officiated at its dedication. This page makes no finding on why the overlap exists.

Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts. The milestone is a retrospective account of 2009 of an event of 1969, with no named author, so no line of it is carried on this page as controlling. Every disagreement below is decided by the dated document that the disagreement names. Governing Definitions, D12.

0.7 Under F56, Mark Nichols ruled on October 23, 2026 that a sentence of history or of definition is true or false as written. This page reads every line of the milestone as written, and it reads every document that it quotes as written by the person or body that wrote it. The meaning an author may have intended but did not write is not in the record, and a line whose predicate is false as written is false, whether the falsity arose from compression, from shorthand or from intent. Each corrected statement on this page supplies the network, the document, the date or the event that the line left out. Governing Definitions, F56.

0.8 Sections 1.0 through 6.0 each state one disagreement, in the order of the milestone's own lines.

  1. Section 1.0 answers the caption at line 10, which describes the Interface Message Processor as "used to interconnect ARPANET networks."
  2. Section 2.0 answers the ARPANET described at line 13 as "the first digital global network" and at line 21 as "the first global packet-switching based network."
  3. Section 3.0 answers the statement at line 14 that "The first documented ARPANET connection was from UCLA to SRI on 29 October 1969 at 10:30 p.m."
  4. Section 4.0 answers the credits at lines 15, 20 and 24, which say that the ARPANET "laid the foundation for the development of the Internet," "set in motion a train of developments that led to the Internet" and "formed the foundation of today’s Internet."
  5. Section 5.0 answers line 30, which calls the network that the paragraph describes "the INTERNET."
  6. Section 6.0 answers the supporting documents of lines 35 through 49, which label notes of 1969 to 1971 "IETF RFC."

Section 7.0 records the statements of the milestone that the documents support. Section 8.0 states the findings of this page and their consequences for the milestone as an authority. Section 9.0 holds Exhibit A, the numbered text of revision 209093.

1.0 The caption at line 10 calls the Interface Message Processor a machine "used to interconnect ARPANET networks," which is false as written, because Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., which built the IMPs, describes them as "a communications subnetwork through which hosts communicate with each other" within one network, and because the gateways, and not the IMPs, joined networks.

1.1 Line 10 of the page, a caption of an image, says: "Front panel of Interface Message Processor (IMP) used to interconnect ARPANET networks."

1.2 BBN Report No. 4799, A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade, of April 1981, written by Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., which built the IMPs, says on printed page III-2: "The IMPs (short for Interface Message Processors) are small, special-purpose computers connected to each other by telephone lines," and "The IMPs provide a communications subnetwork through which hosts communicate with each other." On printed page III-3 the report adds that "Each host is connected to one IMP; one IMP may have several hosts connected to it." RFC 1 of 7 April 1969, which the milestone lists at line 36, names one network: "The software for the ARPA Network exists partly in the IMPs and partly in the respective HOSTs." RFC 1009 of June 1987 separates the IMPs from the devices that join networks: "For example, Interface Message Processors (IMPs) are packet-level routers," and "In the Internet model, constituent networks are connected together by IP datagram forwarders which are called 'gateways' or 'IP routers'." Wikipedia Defines the Internet Protocol Suite: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol, section 3.0.

1.3 Line 10 is false as written under F56. The IMPs connected hosts to one network, the ARPA Network that RFC 1 names, and they did not interconnect networks. The ARPANET was one network, and the words "ARPANET networks" name a plurality of networks that the contractor's report and the milestone's own listed RFC 1 do not record.

1.4 This section counts line 10 among the false-as-written verdicts.

1.5 Corrected statement: The Interface Message Processors, built by Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., were the packet switches of the ARPANET's communications subnetwork, and each IMP connected one or more host computers to that one network.

2.0 Line 13 calls the ARPANET "the first digital global network" and line 21 calls it "the first global packet-switching based network," which is a scope overstatement, because the milestone's own listed RFC 4 of 24 March 1969 plans a network of four sites, UCLA, SRI, UCSB and UTAH, and the UCLA Daily Bruin of July 15, 1969 called it "a nation-wide network."

2.1 Line 13 of the page says: "SRI was one of the first two nodes, with the University of California at Los Angeles, on the ARPANET, the first digital global network based on packet switching and demand access." Line 21 says: "The ARPANET was the first global packet-switching based network, and allowed remote network access to varied applications from multiple users among different computer platforms."

2.2 Mark Nichols disputes the word "global." RFC 4, "Network Timetable," by Elmer B. Shapiro of Stanford Research Institute, dated 24 March 1969, which the milestone lists at line 39, schedules "Test messages between UCLA-SRI 10/15/69," "Test messages between UCSB-SRI 11/15/69" and "Test messges between UTAH-SRI 12/15/69," and draws the network of December 1969 with four sites, SRI, UTAH, UCLA and UCSB. The word "messges" is printed so in RFC 4. The UCLA Daily Bruin of July 15, 1969 reported that "A computer facility here will become the first station in a nation-wide network." This is a scope overstatement.

2.3 This section records a scope overstatement and does not count lines 13 and 21 among the false-as-written verdicts. The ARPANET later reached sites outside the United States, as section 3.0 of IEEE Milestone Birthplace of the Internet, 1969: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol records, and lines 13 and 21 give the network of later years the word "global" in a milestone dated to 1969.

2.4 Corrected statement: In 1969, the ARPANET was a national packet switching network of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, whose first four sites, UCLA, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Utah, RFC 4 of 24 March 1969 scheduled for test messages from October to December 1969.

3.0 Line 14 says that "The first documented ARPANET connection was from UCLA to SRI on 29 October 1969 at 10:30 p.m.," which is a documentary finding, because the contractor's report of October 1969 documents the first IMP "connected to and operating with" the UCLA host computer within days of August 30, 1969, and the event of 29 October 1969 was the first host-to-host message between two sites.

3.1 Line 14 of the page says: "The first documented ARPANET connection was from UCLA to SRI on 29 October 1969 at 10:30 p.m."

3.2 BBN Report No. 1890, Interface Message Processors for the ARPA Computer Network, Quarterly Technical Report No. 3, dated October 1969, says on printed page 4: "Within a few days of its delivery to UCLA on Saturday, August 30, the IMP was connected to and operating with both the Sigma 7 and the phone company equipment." Leonard Kleinrock, writing in IEEE Communications Magazine in August 2010, gave the date of the first connection at UCLA: "On September 2, the day after Labor Day, it was connected via a 15-foot cable to the UCLA host computer." Kleinrock described the event of October 29, 1969 in the same article as a message between hosts: "The ARPANET's first host-to-host message was sent at 10:30 p.m. on October 29, 1969." Wikipedia Defines the Internet Protocol Suite: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol, sections 2.0 and 3.0.

3.3 Mark Nichols records the line as a documentary finding. The first documented connection of the ARPANET, in the contractor's own report of October 1969, was the connection of the first IMP to the UCLA host computer in the first days of September 1969, and the event of 29 October 1969 at 10:30 p.m. was the first host-to-host message, from the UCLA host to the SRI host, as Kleinrock names it.

3.4 This section records a documentary finding and does not count line 14 among the false-as-written verdicts, because the line's time, date and two sites agree with Kleinrock's account of the first host-to-host message, and its word "connection" names a narrower event than the record of September 1969.

3.5 Corrected statement: The first IMP of the ARPANET was connected to the UCLA host computer in the first days of September 1969, as BBN Report No. 1890 of October 1969 records, and the first host-to-host message of the ARPANET was sent from the UCLA host to the SRI host at 10:30 p.m. on 29 October 1969.

4.0 Lines 15, 20 and 24 credit the ARPANET with the Internet in the soft verbs "laid the foundation for the development of the Internet," "set in motion a train of developments that led to the Internet" and "formed the foundation of today’s Internet," which is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7, because the ARPANET was a government network whose users joined by permission and the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991.

4.1 Line 15 of the page, the last sentence of the milestone's citation, says: "The ARPANET’s technology and deployment laid the foundation for the development of the Internet." Line 20 says: "The deployment of the ARPANET set in motion a train of developments that led to the Internet as we know it today." Line 24 says: "With the introduction of a highly adaptive and robust technology for network access, the ARPANET formed the foundation of today’s Internet."

4.2 Mark Nichols disputes the credit in all three lines. The soft words are "laid the foundation for," "set in motion" with "led to," and "formed the foundation of." The hard claim of all three is that the ARPANET produced the Internet. Under D1, the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., and under D1.7 the words of lineage are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET. This is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7, and the three lines are recorded as soft-verb credits at entries 11.1, 11.2 and 11.4 of Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol. Governing Definitions, D1 and D1.7.

4.3 Lines 20 and 24 belong to the ten sentences that the milestone shares, with small edits, with IEEE Milestone No. 94, "Birthplace of the Internet, 1969," as section 4.0 of IEEE Milestone Birthplace of the Internet, 1969: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol records. Line 23, "This development was the key to allowing a diverse set of users to operate over the telephone network of the day," belongs to the same shared text, and this page did not test it, so it is recorded as a soft-verb credit at entry 11.3 of the register.

4.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7 and does not count lines 15, 20 and 24 among the false-as-written verdicts.

4.5 Corrected statement: The ARPANET, a government research network of the Advanced Research Projects Agency whose first nodes operated at UCLA and SRI in 1969 and whose users joined by permission, belongs to the history of internetworking, and the Internet, with a capital I, the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, was born in 1991.

5.0 Line 30 names "the INTERNET" as the network whose packet switching and demand access differ from circuit switching, while the paragraph describes the ARPANET, which is a definitional disagreement under D1, because the milestone gives the ARPANET of 1969 the name of the network of 1991.

5.1 Line 30 of the page says: "The application of packet switching and demand access are fundamental differences between the INTERNET and previous circuit switching based networks." The paragraph continues at line 34: "The ARPANET differed from previous computer networks (e.g. SAGE) in that those networks were specialized constructions, designed to link specific machines of a similar type together, whereas ARPANET was designed to allow machines to communicate efficiently irrespective of type."

5.2 Mark Nichols disputes the name in line 30. The milestone's own citation at line 13 describes the ARPANET as "based on packet switching and demand access," the same two features that line 30 assigns to "the INTERNET," and line 34 names the ARPANET as the network that differed from earlier networks. Line 30 therefore names the ARPANET "the INTERNET." Under D1, the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991. This is a definitional disagreement under D1. Governing Definitions, D1.

5.3 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1 and does not count line 30 among the false-as-written verdicts.

5.4 Corrected statement: The application of packet switching and demand access distinguished the ARPANET of 1969 from earlier circuit switching networks.

6.0 The supporting documents at lines 36 through 46 label notes of 1969 to 1971 "IETF RFC," which is a documentary finding, because RFC 1 of 7 April 1969 calls itself a note of the "Network Working Group" and RFC 4677, "The Tao of IETF," records that "The first IETF meeting was held in January 1986."

6.1 Line 36 of the page says: "Crocker, S., “Host Software”, IETF RFC 1, April 1969." Lines 37 through 46 label RFCs 2, 3, 4, 7, 18, 22, 28, 41, 42 and 287, dated from March 1969 to December 1971, in the same way, as "IETF RFC."

6.2 RFC 1 names its issuer in its header as "Network Working Group," numbers itself "Request for Comments: 1," and dates itself "7 April 1969." RFC 4677 of September 2006, "The Tao of IETF," says in its section 3.1, "Humble Beginnings": "The first IETF meeting was held in January 1986 at Linkabit in San Diego, with 21 attendees."

6.3 Mark Nichols records the labels as a documentary finding. The notes of 1969 to 1971 that the milestone lists were issued by the Network Working Group, which RFC 1 names, more than sixteen years before the first meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force that RFC 4677 dates to January 1986. The label "IETF RFC" gives notes of 1969 the name of a body that did not yet exist.

6.4 This section records a documentary finding and does not count lines 36 through 46 among the false-as-written verdicts, because the label names the series in which the notes are now served and does not state that the IETF wrote them. Unlike IEEE Milestone No. 94, whose one significant reference is a magazine story of 2019, Milestone No. 89 lists documents of 1968 and 1969 among its supporting documents, and this page credits that listing in section 7.0.

6.5 Corrected statement: RFC 1, "Host Software," by Steve Crocker of UCLA, was issued on 7 April 1969 as Request for Comments 1 of the Network Working Group, and the Internet Engineering Task Force held its first meeting in January 1986.

7.0 IEEE Milestone No. 89 states several things correctly that this page checked, among them its title and its first clause, which name the network and its first two nodes as the documents of 1969 name them, and the documents that support each one are named here.

7.1 The title at line 1, "Inception of the ARPANET, 1969," names the network that the documents of 1969 name. RFC 1 of 7 April 1969 calls it "the ARPA Network," and RFC 4 of 24 March 1969 schedules its test messages for October to December 1969.

7.2 The first clause of line 13, "SRI was one of the first two nodes, with the University of California at Los Angeles, on the ARPANET," is supported. RFC 4 of 24 March 1969 schedules the first "Test messages between UCLA-SRI 10/15/69" and draws that network configuration with two sites, SRI and UCLA. RFC 1 of 7 April 1969 draws the establishment of a link between a "HOST: UCLA" and a "HOST: SRI."

7.3 The time, the date and the two sites of line 14 agree with Leonard Kleinrock's account of August 2010: "The ARPANET's first host-to-host message was sent at 10:30 p.m. on October 29, 1969." Section 3.0 records the scope of the word "connection."

7.4 The dates that the milestone gives at line 36 for RFC 1, "April 1969," and at line 39 for RFC 4, "March 1969," are supported by the documents, which are dated "7 April 1969" and "24 March 1969."

7.5 This page did not check the other lines of the page, among them the location of the plaque at lines 16 and 17, the dedication at lines 18 and 19, the statements of 2009 at lines 25 through 29 and the remaining supporting documents, and it makes no finding on them.

7.6 Section 7.0 credits the title stated in 7.1, the first clause of line 13 stated in 7.2, the time, date and sites of line 14 stated in 7.3 and the dates of lines 36 and 39 stated in 7.4 as supported.

8.0 One statement of IEEE Milestone No. 89 is false as written, the caption that calls the IMP a machine "used to interconnect ARPANET networks," five further findings record a scope overstatement, two documentary findings and two definitional disagreements, the milestone's title and its first clause are supported by the documents of 1969 that it lists, and the milestone is not carried on marknichols.com as an authority on the birth of the Internet.

8.1 The following statement of revision 209093 is false as written under F56. It is decided by the dated documents named in the section cited.

  1. Line 10 calls the IMP a machine "used to interconnect ARPANET networks," while BBN Report No. 4799 of April 1981 describes the IMPs as "a communications subnetwork through which hosts communicate with each other" and RFC 1 of 7 April 1969 names one "ARPA Network," as section 1.0 records.

8.2 Five further findings record disagreements that are not counted among the false-as-written verdicts.

  1. Lines 13 and 21 call the ARPANET of 1969 "global," while RFC 4 of 24 March 1969 plans a network of four sites, UCLA, SRI, UCSB and UTAH, which is a scope overstatement, as section 2.0 records.
  2. Line 14 calls the event of 29 October 1969 "The first documented ARPANET connection," while BBN Report No. 1890 of October 1969 documents the IMP connected to the UCLA host in the first days of September 1969, which is a documentary finding, as section 3.0 records.
  3. Lines 15, 20 and 24 credit the ARPANET with laying and forming "the foundation" of the Internet, which is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7, as section 4.0 records.
  4. Line 30 names the ARPANET "the INTERNET," which is a definitional disagreement under D1, as section 5.0 records.
  5. Lines 36 through 46 label notes of 1969 to 1971 "IETF RFC," while RFC 4677 dates the first IETF meeting to January 1986, which is a documentary finding, as section 6.0 records.

8.3 Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts, and this page has decided each finding by the following documents.

  1. RFC 4, "Network Timetable," by Elmer B. Shapiro of Stanford Research Institute, dated 24 March 1969, schedules the first test messages of the ARPANET between UCLA and SRI and plans a network of four sites.
  2. RFC 1, "Host Software," by Steve Crocker of UCLA, dated 7 April 1969, names "the ARPA Network" and the Network Working Group.
  3. BBN Report No. 1890 of October 1969 records the first IMP connected to the UCLA host within days of its delivery on August 30, 1969.
  4. BBN Report No. 4799 of April 1981, by Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., describes the IMPs as the communications subnetwork of one network.
  5. The press release of March 25, 1991, issued by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., announced the first Commercial Internet Exchange.

The milestone is a retrospective account of 2009 with no named author, and no line of it is carried on marknichols.com as controlling. The milestone's title, "Inception of the ARPANET, 1969," names the network that its own listed documents of 1969 name, and that title stands against the title of IEEE Milestone No. 94, "Birthplace of the Internet, 1969," for the same event of 29 October 1969. Governing Definitions, D12.

8.4 The findings on this page are open to challenge on the terms stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. A challenger who holds that a finding on this page is wrong states the competing claim in one sentence, names the document that carries it and the document's date, and submits both as F40 directs. A challenge submitted with its document is answered on this page, and a challenge submitted without a document is an opinion and is heard as one.

9.0 This section holds Exhibit A, the numbered text of the page of IEEE Milestone No. 89 on the Engineering and Technology History Wiki in revision 209093, saved on August 31, 2026.

9.1 Exhibit A reproduces the text of the page line by line, under the names of the page's own sections, so that every line number cited on this page can be read in place.

  1. Exhibit A includes the page's title, the rows of its summary box with each label separated from its value by a vertical bar, the captions of its images, its citation and body sentences, and its list of supporting documents.
  2. Exhibit A omits the page's map and the navigation of the wiki.
  3. Exhibit A prints every line as the page prints it, including the page's own words "the INTERNET" at line 30 and its labels "IETF RFC" at lines 36 through 46, which are quotations of the page and not this site's wording.

The text is quoted from the Engineering and Technology History Wiki for the purpose of this examination. ETHW, Milestones: Inception of the ARPANET, 1969.

Page heading and record

1. Milestones:Inception of the ARPANET, 1969

2. Date Dedicated | 2009-09-16

3. Dedication # | 89

4. Location | Menlo Park, California, U.S.A.

5. IEEE Regions | 6

6. IEEE sections | Santa Clara Valley

7. Achievement date range | 1969

Image captions

8. ARPANET logo

9. The ARPANET's first 4 nodes

10. Front panel of Interface Message Processor (IMP) used to interconnect ARPANET networks

11. TCP co-designer Robert Kahn and ARPANET historical marker, in front of the former Wilson Blvd. DARPA HQ building in Arlington, VA

12. 3 SRI Milestone plaques in Visitors Lobby: Inception of the ARPANET, SHAKEY the Robot, and Engelbart's Public Demonstration

Inception of the ARPANET, 1969

13. SRI was one of the first two nodes, with the University of California at Los Angeles, on the ARPANET, the first digital global network based on packet switching and demand access.

14. The first documented ARPANET connection was from UCLA to SRI on 29 October 1969 at 10:30 p.m.

15. The ARPANET’s technology and deployment laid the foundation for the development of the Internet.

16. This milestone's plaque can be seen in the Visitors Lobby of SRI International Building A, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 (GPS: 37.45758, -122.17642), which is open to the public 7am-6pm on weekdays.

17. It is the 1st of 3 Milestone plaques mounted on the left wall.

18. The dedication of this Milestone took place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on September 16, 2009, with Internet Pioneer Vint Cerf amongst those officiating.

19. This event also celebrated IEEE's 125th anniversary, one of eight such events held around the world that year.

20. The deployment of the ARPANET set in motion a train of developments that led to the Internet as we know it today.

21. The ARPANET was the first global packet-switching based network, and allowed remote network access to varied applications from multiple users among different computer platforms.

22. It also applied the concept of protocol layering to communications.

23. This development was the key to allowing a diverse set of users to operate over the telephone network of the day, which was optimized for voice and not suited to data traffic.

24. With the introduction of a highly adaptive and robust technology for network access, the ARPANET formed the foundation of today’s Internet.

25. The Internet is leading the way into a twenty-first century information society.

26. It has penetrated our institutions and has changed our behavior and attitudes in fundamental ways.

27. More than one billion people on this planet use the Internet today in daily life, in business, in government, and in academia all around the world.

28. The younger generation cannot conceive of a time when they could not share their photos, chat with friends, stream video, or shop online.

29. We can never turn the clock back to the pre-Internet world.

30. The application of packet switching and demand access are fundamental differences between the INTERNET and previous circuit switching based networks.

31. It utilizes network resources by dynamically sharing them among many streams.

32. This leads to significantly improved efficiency and robustness of the network.

33. The layering scheme it introduces has allowed the development of flexible protocols, as well as the efficient communication between different computing platforms.

34. The ARPANET differed from previous computer networks (e.g. SAGE) in that those networks were specialized constructions, designed to link specific machines of a similar type together, whereas ARPANET was designed to allow machines to communicate efficiently irrespective of type.

List of supporting documents and publications submitted in electronic format

35. Shapiro, E., “A Study of Computer Network Design Parameters”, SRI Project 7016 Final Report, submitted to ARPA Dec 1968

36. Crocker, S., “Host Software”, IETF RFC 1, April 1969

37. Duvall, B., “Host software”, IETF RFC 2, April 1969

38. Crocker, S., “Documentation Conventions”, IETF RFC 3, April 1969

39. Shapiro, E., “Network Timetable”, IETF RFC 4, March 1969

40. Deloche, G., “Host-IMP Interface”, IETF RFC 7, May 1969

41. Cerf, V., “IMP-IMP and Host-Host Control Links”, IETF RFC 18, Sept 1969

42. Cerf, V., “Host-host Control Message Formats”, IETF RFC 22, Oct 1969

43. English, B., “Time Standards”, IETF RFC 28, Jan 1970

44. Melvin, J., “IMP-IMP Teletype Communication”, IETF RFC 41, March 1970

45. Ancona, E.I., “Message Data Types”, IETF RFC 42, March 1970

46. Westheimer E., “Status of Network Hosts”, IETF RFC 287, Dec. 1971

47. Internet History, http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/

48. Kleinrock, L., “The Birth of Internet”, http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/LK/Inet/birth.html

49. Kleinrock, L., “Models for Computer Networks,” Conference Record, IEEE International Conference on Communications, Boulder, Colorado, pp.21-9 to 21-16, June 1969