On May 10th, 2014, Internet pioneers gathered for a picnic at
Mitchell Park in Palo Alto, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the conception of the Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). A plaque commemorating the place where Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn developed the TCP specification at the (now) Crowne Plaza Cabana in Palo Alto, was in the hotel after talks at the park.
To celebrate this seminal contribution that now touches over 3 billion people worldwide, the Mayor of Palo Alto was joined by Vint Cerf of Google, Yogen Dalal of the Mayfield Fund, Judy Estrin of JLabs, Charles Goldfarb, Godfather of Markup Languages, Dan Lynch, founder of Interop, John Shoch of Alloy Ventures, Marc Weber, Internet Historian at the Computer History Museum and Sean Askay of Google Earth.
Vint Cerf directing members of the ARPA team testing the first successful transmission of TCP packets over radio in Silicon Valley. (Photo courtesy of SRI International).
May 10th was also be the public launching of the Website
tcpip40.com, a platform to collect the stories of how the Internet came to be, and what it means to people of many different backgrounds. The aim is to complement the work of the biographer of the Internet, Andreu Vea,
WiWiW.org to have the seminal events of the conception and creation of the Internet, the collective work of 100’s maybe 1000’s of people, to be described in their own words.
The May 10th event was organized by volunteers who wish to bring together the pioneers who have accomplished so much and changed the world we live in. It provides a special opportunity for everyone to gather and hear their stories, and understand the original hopes and dreams for the Internet. The event was a multi-generational picnic, open to everyone.
You can also learn more about the event at
TCPIP40.com and use the hashtag #tcpip40 to follow and contribute over Twitter or Google +, or visit the Facebook page at
facebook.com/tcpip40.
"By the early 1970s, the practice of connecting once stand-alone computers together into general-purpose computer networks was barely five years old. But already there were more than half a dozen such networks: ARPANet, NPL Mark I, CYCLADES, and so on. ARPA itself was in the process of commissioning two more; the Packet Radio Network (PRNET), and the Satellite Network (SATNET).
But there was a big problem: none of these networks could talk to each other!
The solution came to several researchers in that early community around the same time. What was needed was a network of networks, a process known as "internetworking" or "internetting." By 1973, the European Informatics Network was experimentally connecting NPL in the UK and CYCLADES in France. Behind closed doors, Xerox's PARC research center was hooking up Ethernet to other local area networks that same year with its new PUP internetting protocol.
Bob Kahn at ARPA, who was funding the creation of PRNET and SATNET, had a very practical need -- to connect these military networks to each other and to the existing ARPAnet. He met up with another ARPANET alum, Vint Cerf, and in one inspired session in May of 1974 they created the first specification for ARPA's own internetting protocol -- TCP, or Transport Control Protocol.
It would be three years before they fully tested it, in a dramatic three-network international trial based from a research van in motion. It would be nearly 20 years of struggle before ARPA's protocol beat out all its rivals -- including heavyweight contenders from international standards organizations and computing giants like IBM and DEC.
By the early '90s Cerf and Kahn's protocol would emerge as the undisputed standard for internetting, or connecting computer networks to each other: the one we call "the" Internet. The Web won a separate battle to become the dominant online system for navigating information across the Internet. Together, the Web running over the Internet beat out earlier alternatives from Minitel to CompuServe, and our familiar online world took off.
On May 10 th, we celebrate 40 years since here, in the hotel Cabana in Palo Alto, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn hammered out the rudiments of the standard that underlies today's online world, and connects over 3 billion people."
Marc Weber – Internet Historian at the Computer History Museum
Yámana Science and Technology (yamanascience.org), a 501(c)3 focused on the future of science, and Argus Insights, Inc. (argusinsights.com) are very pleased to be participating in this historic gathering. Yámana partnered with Vint Cerf and Mei Lin Fung in hosting this event to promote collaboration between the science and technology communities.
Let us know if have a story to contribute. And if you want to be involved in collecting these stories, email birthofinternet@gmail.com.