This list is provided as a service to the many people requesting information on the history of the development of ARPANET or the Internet. DARPA cannot verify the accuracy of these publications, nor do we necessarily endorse the authors’ opinions.
Most sources listed below are secondary sources, but some include interviews with the original developers or are articles written by them.
General Internet Searches
A search for sources on "ARPANET" and/or "Internet history" using any good search engine should find multiple sources. Other suggested sources include:
Videos, Articles and Books About ARPANET
- DARPA and the Internet Revolution
- “ARPANet,” by A. Kruse, D. Schmorrow, and J. Sears, in W.S. Bainbridge (Ed.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction (Vol. 1, pp. 37-40), Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2004.
- “How the Web Was Won,” by Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb, Vanity Fair, July 2008. [An oral history of the Internet – edited interviews and audio clips.]
- "Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History Of The Internet," television show, aired on Public Broadcasting Stations in November 1998, with associated Web site.
- Casting the Net, by Peter Salus, published by Addison Wesley, 1995.
- Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet, by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, published by Simon and Schuster, 1996.
- “Talking Headers,” Hafner and Lyon, Washington Post Magazine, 8/4/96, pp 9-13; 21-28. [Explains how the ARPANET, originally designed to allow computer researchers to share scarce computer resources, came to be used for electronic mail. Based on the Hafner and Lyon book.]
- Transforming Computer Technology, by Arthur Norberg and Judy O’Neill, 1997.
- “Geek Gods: How Cybergeniuses Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf Turned a Pentagon Project into the Internet and Connected the World,” by John Adam, Washingtonian Magazine, November 1996, p. 66. [Includes interviews with Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf, who many consider to be the “fathers of the Internet.”]
- “Present at the Creation of the Internet: Now That We’re All Linked Up and Sitting Quietly, Vint Cerf, One of Its Architects, Describes How the Internet Came Into Being,” San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed by Laura Evenson, March 16, 1997, p. 3 ff.
- “A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade,” a technical report by Bolt Baranek and Newman, Inc., April 1981.
- “What Is The Internet (And What Makes It Work),” December 1999, by Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf. [Paper prepared at the request of the Internet Policy Institute; covers internet architecture, government’s role, who runs the internet, future of the internet, other topics. Posted March 2007 athttp://dr-net-cyber.blogspot.com/2007/03/internet.html
- Data Communications, October 21, 1997 issue (Vol. 26, No. 14) includes articles written by Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Metcalfe, Vint Cerf, Marcus J. Ranum, and Dan Lynch. [Each person authored a separate article within the section called "25 Pathfinders." All authors claim to have been involved in the early phases of ARPANET development.]
- Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence (1983-1993), by Alex Roland and Philip Shiman, MIT Press, London, 2002. [Assesses technology, people, organizational culture and political forces impacting the program; includes info on historical context for the program, case studies and management issues.]
- “Computing stuck in its infancy but vision lives on,” by Matthew Magee, Sunday Tribune (Dublin, Ireland), June 15, 2003. [An interview with Alan Kay that discusses early object oriented computing research by ARPA and PARC.]
- “Net was born of economic necessity, not fear,” by John Till Johnson, Network World, June 7, 2004. [Outlines why ARPANET being designed to withstand nuclear war is an “urban legend.”]
- “He made the net work – Larry Roberts persuaded scientists to share their computers,” by Otis Port, Business Week, Sept. 27, 2004. [Article in series of profiles of greatest innovators of the past 75 years.]
- “California – A Message Was the Medium at UCLA,” Los Angeles Times, by Michael Hiltzik, Nov. 1, 2004. [Quotes Len Kleinrock of UCLA about birth of internet when first message transmitted over ARPANET.]
- “The Insider: Vint Cerf,” by Garrett M. Graff, Washingtonian, December 2008. [Cerf discusses early days of ARPANET]