AN OVERVIEW

Between 1968-1988, the burgeoning needs of first the Department of Defense and then of large corporations to interconnect their computers and peripherals drove the history of Computer Communications. In 1968, the needs were simply how to interconnect essentially computer terminals to computers over the telephone network, especially the public switched network controlled by the regulated monopoly, AT&T. That need, when exasperated by having to have unique terminals for every manufacturers’ computers, compelled a government agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), to explore building a network interconnecting diverse computers. These initial dynamics, the resistance of AT&T to change and the incentive to innovate a solution to the constraints of both the telephone network and the proprietary nature of manufacturers’ terminal-to-computer connections, led to the a series of innovations cumulatively known as packet switching. Packet switching proved inexhaustible to meeting the evolving needs of interconnecting computers.

While the most immediate needs and constraints driving the nature of computer communications were those of computers and telecommunications (or communications), these dynamics were played out in a veritable “soup” of other conditions and actions. Some of these external factors will be briefly discussed in the historical reconstruction.