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Interface Message Processor

Arpanet was a computer network developed in the 1960s that paved the way for today's internet. At its heart was the Interface Message Processor: a massive, heavily armoured box containing the technology that made it possible. Tim Harford takes a look inside.

Available now

10 minutes

Last on

Mon 30 Sep 2019 03:50GMT

Image credit

Leonard Kleinrock poses with the original Interface Message Processor (Credit: Jay L Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Sources

Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon Where Wizards Stay Up Late Touchstone: New York 1996

Gene Rochlin Trapped In The Net Princeton University Press

Janet Abbate Inventing The Internet MIT Press 1999

Peter H Salus Casting The Net: from ARPANET to Internet and beyond Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts 1995

Graham Linehan The IT Crowd "The Speech" Aired Dec 2008

Andrew Blum Tubes Viking: London 2012

David Bunnell Making The Cisco Connection John Wiley New York

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Broadcasts

  • Sat 28 Sep 2019 04:50GMT
  • Sat 28 Sep 2019 13:50GMT
  • Sun 29 Sep 2019 14:50GMT
  • Sun 29 Sep 2019 21:50GMT
  • Sun 29 Sep 2019 22:50GMT
  • Mon 30 Sep 2019 03:50GMT

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