The major goal of the project was to allow for the more efficient sharing of computer resources. Computers were rarer in the s than they are today, and not everyone who worked on an ARPA project had access to the horsepower they needed. Nevertheless, it was. The RAND corporation has drawn a link between some of the early work it did on packet-switched networks as opposed to circuit-switched networks and the comparative robustness of the former.
While RAND published some theoretical work on packet-switched networks at the same time researchers were creating what would become part of ARPANET, the two projects were not connected and the two groups were not aware of each other. Image and caption via Wikipedia. Predictably, the new network was scarcely used at the beginning. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Who Invented Beer? Who Invented Television? Who invented the metric system?
Who invented the zero? Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other. This allowed different kinds of computers on different networks to "talk" to each other.
All networks could now be connected by a universal language. It weighed some 16, pounds, used 5, vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1, calculations per second. It was the first American commercial computer, as well as the first computer designed for business use.
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