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.
Last on
Image credit
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
Charley Kline Sends the First Message over the ARPANET - History of Information
Broadcasts
- Sat 28 Sep 201904:50GMTBBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & South Asia
- Sat 28 Sep 201913:50GMTBBC World Service News Internet
- Sun 29 Sep 201914:50GMTBBC World Service except Americas and the Caribbean, East Asia & South Asia
- Sun 29 Sep 201921:50GMTBBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Sun 29 Sep 201922:50GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Mon 30 Sep 201903:50GMTBBC World Service South Asia
Podcast
![]()
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy
The stories of inventions, ideas and innovations which helped create the economic world
