From Dorian de Wind at The Moderate Voice:
During my last couple of years in the U.S. Air Force, I was in charge of a team of communications software engineers developing new (“store and forward”) military message switching systems.
At the time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was fully engaged in developing and implementing the ARPANET, a communications system based on packet switching technology and using what became the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) communications protocols, both of which in effect became the technical foundation for what we now know as the Internet.
Our team studiously followed the development of the ARPA network and its packet switching technology, well aware that it would eventually replace the more traditional circuit switching and message switching technology.
It was my first contact with DARPA and ever since then the amazing talent and breathtaking scientific and technical accomplishments at DARPA have awed me.