How prophetic that first message was . . . almost biblical.The (first) message text was the word "login"; the "l" and the "o" letters were transmitted, but the system then crashed. Hence, the literal first message over the ARPANET was "lo".
I also especially like this:
And this to show how politician's ride the coattails of their betters . . .It was the first, and being first, was best,
but now we lay it down to ever rest.
Now pause with me a moment, shed some tears.
For auld lang syne, for love, for years and years
of faithful service, duty done, I weep.
Lay down thy packet, now, O friend, and sleep.
-Vinton Cerf
Finally, I'm surprised at how long TCP/IP has prevailed. It must be because standards have evolved and there is so much vested interest in using the protocol, but perhaps the huge installed base makes replacement too expensive. Or, perhaps, it is a 'wheel' which cannot be re-invented or improved enough to cause its displacement.Senator Albert Gore, Jr. began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill") after hearing the 1988 report toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by Leonard Kleinrock, professor of computer science at UCLA. The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Al Gore called the "information superhighway". ARPANET was the subject of two IEEE Milestones, both dedicated in 2009.