• Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    They were under the DoD, but they filled a role closer to the NSF today.

    DARPA was defense projects funded by the military for the military. NSF predates DARPA by 8 years. DARPA did not fill a role closer to the NSF today.

    It was after ARPANET was created for the military that it was expanded into general university use by NSF into NSFNet in 1986.

    (I worked for Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf in the early 90’s.)

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      DARPA was originally ARPA. They were under the department of defense but their project scope wasn’t limited to defense projects. The reorganization that rebranded the agency as DARPA and made it defense focused ostensibly saw the non-defense oriented moonshot project responsibility transfer to the NSF, although the funding shift wasn’t proportional.
      The order of creation isn’t exactly relevant to how responsibilities have shifted.

      It’s kinda like how, for the longest time, presidential security was handled by the Treasury department. It wasn’t because presidential security was considered a financial matter, but because that’s where it fit.

      https://www.darpa.mil/news/features/arpanet

      Secure communications and information-sharing between geographically dispersed research facilities were among the ARPANET’s original goals.

      From your link to the arpanet wiki:

      Building on the ideas of J. C. R. Licklider, Bob Taylor initiated the ARPANET project in 1966 to enable resource sharing between remote computers.

      Sutherland and Taylor continued their interest in creating the network, in part, to allow ARPA-sponsored researchers at various corporate and academic locales to utilize computers provided by ARPA, and, in part, to quickly distribute new software and other computer science results.

      There’s a big difference between ARPA funded labs and general university usage.

      I’m not sure why it would matter that you worked for them in the early 90s. That doesn’t exactly give you a privileged insight into the creation of ARPANET.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        information-sharing between geographically dispersed research facilities

        Research facilities doing DOD research.

        I’m not sure why it would matter that you worked for them in the early 90s.

        The president of the company got Vint and Bob on board because he was their military liason at Darpa.

        The project I worked on was partially funded by Darpa. We reported weekly updates to a Lt Colonel.

        The Internet was originally by the military and for the military and only later handed off to universities.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          6 minutes ago

          Yes, I will just take your word for it over the word of the original people involved.

          You keep talking about DARPA, when they’re not the same organization that backed ARPANET. Arpanet came before laws were passed saying DARPA could only fund projects directly related to defense.