Saturday, November 8, 2008

Birthplace of the Internet: 3420 Boelter Hall

I've long known that UCLA is the birthplace of the Internet. However, not until recently did I know the exact location of where this historical moment happened just more than 39 years ago: 3420 Boelter Hall. As a web programmer, I feel that it is my responsibility to check it out (after all, I'll be jobless if the Internet doesn't exist):

This is the current 3420 Boelter Hall

See, it is 3420

This is the old 3420 Boelter Hall, which
has become 3424 Boelter Hall now

Someone just used a marker to make the
"0" a "4" now. Typical engineer solution...
(-___- )

Because of this notice, I think that the first
ARPANET message was sent from this
3424 Boelter Hall, not the one I showed
in the first two photos

A look of the two rooms (on the left)
and the hallway

Man, the Engineering School should spend some money to create a plaque or, better yet, make 3420 Boelter Hall a exhibition room. Come on, this is a huge thing! Can you imagine what the world is like now if this groundbreaking research project didn't succeed back in 1969? :P

7 comments:

  1. maybe Stanford would have more money to do it!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tina: Yes Stanford is richer.. Not sure if they've done anything to Douglas Engelbart's lab at SRI where the first ARPANET message was sent to in 1969 though :P

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Alex,

    I'm a bit late, but I really appreciate your post.

    I've linked to an update on these events, one that you're probably already familiar with.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Also, the original room was 3420, which spanned the middle of (present-day) 3420 and 3424. Here is a link to the exact location.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great! Thanks for the comment Brad :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey Alex.. I was searching up 3420 boelter and your blog came up.

    I would like to link you an update http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/04/browsing_history
    ..Somebody finally IS doing something :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jessica: Great, thanks for the update. Hopefully the room will be ready for exhibition soon :)

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.