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The SDS Sigma-7: The First Computer to be Connected to the Internet

This is the very first computer to ever be connected to the Internet. Of course, back in 1969 it wasn't called the Internet, but the ARPANET, and really there was no ARPANET to connect to - this computer and its accompanying Interface Message Processor formed the first node on the ARPANET, and the connection from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was the first backbone link on the ARPANET.

 

This computer sent, with the aid of the IMP (which is essentially a router), the very first message ever sent on the Internet, which promptly crashed the computer on SRI's end.

 

I took this photo at the grand re-opening of the original Boelter 3420 lab at UCLA, the birthplace of the Internet, as the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site and Archive, which will soon open to the public. If you'd like to learn more about the museum, click here.

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Uploaded on October 30, 2011
Taken on October 29, 2011