Happy 40th Birthday, Internet
Internet pioneer and UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock discusses the process of connecting the first host computer to the fledgling Internet, then known as the ARPANET, in September 1969, and sending the first host-to-host message a month later on October 29, 1969.
UCLA became the first node of the ARPANET on Sept. 2, 1969, when 35-year-old Leonard Kleinrock led a group of computer scientists in establishing the first network connection between two machines on campus. Two months later, on Oct. 29, Kleinrock and his team, working out of a small space in the engineering school's Boelter Hall, succeeded in sending the first host-to-host message from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute hundreds of miles away, signaling the birth of the Internet.
While the initial message was intended to be "LOGIN," the team managed only partial success. "We succeeded in transmitting the 'L' and the 'O'," Kleinrock recalled, "and then the system crashed. Hence, the first message on the Internet was 'LO' — as in 'Lo and behold!' We didn't plan it, but we couldn't have come up with a better message: short and prophetic."
Kleinrock, the architect of the groundbreaking packet-switching method that made the Internet possible, has been widely honored for his contributions to world-transforming technologies. He continues to work out of a modest office down the hall from the room where the Internet began and across from a storage closet containing the Internet's first router.
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet at UCLA, the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science presents a daylong celebration and forum featuring some of the most influential Internet leaders, activists and analysts, who will offer valuable insights on the online opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
Where do we go from here?
Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a radically changed internet five years from now: dominated by Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time.
What do you think the internet will look like in the future?
You know how sometimes you hear a theme every once in a while, and you don’t make much of it? But then you hear it five times in a week, and suddenly you say whoah, something’s going on here!
