Predecessor to the Internet turns 40

If you’re listening online, or checking there for messages, the sequence of events that made it possible reached a milestone 40 years ago. UCLA’s scheduled a daylong event to mark the anniversary.

The first message Samuel Morse transmitted by telegraph was “What Hath God Wrought?” – 125 years later, on Oct. 29, 1969, the first host-to-host message over the Internet’s predecessor ARPANET was considerably shorter. It consisted of the letters L and O.

Computer scientist Leonard Kleinrock, who sent that message from an engineering school office at UCLA, had tried to tell the recipient at Stanford University to LOG IN. But he only managed to transmit the first two letters.

Kleinrock said that LO has taken on a prophetic significance, as in “LO and behold.” It heralded the beginning of a new means of communication.

To reflect on what the Internet has wrought, UCLA’s engineering school has assembled influential bloggers, music and movie industry professionals, and online visionaries for a daylong symposium. Think of it as a virtual candle on the Internet’s birthday cake.