INWG and the Conception of the Internet: An Eyewitness Account

1972 was an exciting year in computer networking. The ARPANET, which came to life near the end of 1969, had grown to 29 nodes by August 1972. The National Physical Laboratory in England, under the direction of Donald Davies, had been running a 1-node packet switch interconnecting several NPL computers for several years. In July 1972, three people associ ated with the ARPANET work at BBN formed a new company, Packet Communications, to engage in the business of providing communication services for computer to terminal, computer to computer, and terminal to terminal information transfer.