The internet wasn't born in a sleek Silicon Valley glass tower or a hyper-funded startup hub. It actually started in a bunch of cramped offices, dimly lit labs, and late-night research sessions where engineers drank way too much coffee. If you want to understand how we got here, you have to look at Where Wizards Stay Up Late, the seminal book by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon that chronicles the birth of the ARPANET.
It's kind of wild to think about.
Before we had TikTok or even email, a small group of researchers at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) were just trying to get computers to talk to each other. They weren't trying to change the world, necessarily. They were trying to solve a resource problem. Computers back then were the size of refrigerators and cost millions. You couldn't just carry one around. If you were a researcher in Utah and needed to use a specific computer in Massachusetts, you were basically out of luck unless you traveled there.
The IMPs and the First "Lo"
The "Wizards" weren't guys in robes; they were engineers at a firm called Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Frank Heart, Bob Kahn, Severo Ornstein, Dave Walden—these were the people staying up late. They won the contract to build the Interface Message Processors, or IMPs. Think of an IMP as the ancestor of your modern home router, but way more rugged and complicated.
The first real test happened on October 29, 1969. Charley Kline, a student at UCLA, tried to log in to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He started typing "LOGIN." He got the "L" and the "O" through. Then the system crashed.
So, the first message ever sent over the precursor to the internet was "LO."
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It's oddly poetic. It wasn't "What hath God wrought" or some grand proclamation. It was a glitchy, incomplete fragment. But that fragment proved the concept of packet switching worked. This wasn't a circuit-switched system like the old telephone lines where a dedicated path stayed open. Packet switching broke data into little chunks, sent them through whatever path was open, and reassembled them at the end. That is the fundamental DNA of everything you do online today.
Why People Still Obsess Over This History
Honestly, Where Wizards Stay Up Late remains the gold standard for tech history because it avoids the "lone genius" myth. You've probably heard people argue about who "invented" the internet. Was it Al Gore? (No, he never actually said he did, he just supported the funding). Was it Vint Cerf? Bob Kahn? J.C.R. Licklider?
The truth is it was a massive, collaborative effort. Licklider had the "Intergalactic Computer Network" vision, but he wasn't the one soldering the wires. Larry Roberts was the project manager who drove the technical specs with an iron fist. The BBN team were the ones who actually made the hardware work.
The Human Element of Hacking
Most people think of technology as cold and calculated. But the history of the ARPANET is incredibly human. It was full of ego, late-night arguments, and sheer exhaustion. Hafner and Lyon captured the "wizardry" not as magic, but as the intense focus of people working on the edge of what was possible.
The book highlights how informal the early days were. The Network Working Group (NWG) consisted of grad students who were basically making up the rules as they went along. Steve Crocker, who wrote the very first Request for Comments (RFC 1), actually felt a bit of "impostor syndrome." He thought some "real" authority would come along and tell them how to do it. But no one did. They were the authority.
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The Architecture of Openness
One thing that's easy to miss is how much the original design of the ARPANET influences our current struggles with privacy and security. The "Wizards" were building a system for a small, trusted community of researchers. They didn't build in deep security layers because, well, why would you? Everyone knew everyone else.
This openness allowed the internet to scale at an explosive rate. It was flexible. It was decentralized. But it also left the door wide open for the challenges we face in 2026—misinformation, hacking, and surveillance. When you read about the early days, you see that the designers weren't being naive; they were being practical. They just wanted the packets to get through.
- Packet Switching: The radical idea from Paul Baran and Donald Davies that made the network resilient.
- The 50kbps Lines: In 1969, this was "high speed." Today, your smart fridge uses more bandwidth.
- The RFC Process: This is still how the internet is governed today. It started because grad students didn't want to sound too bossy.
The Shift to TCP/IP
The transition from the ARPANET to the modern Internet happened on January 1, 1983. This was "Flag Day." Every machine on the network had to switch over to TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). This was the work of Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.
If the ARPANET was a local neighborhood, TCP/IP was the international shipping lanes. It allowed different types of networks to talk to each other. This is why we call it the "Internet"—it’s an inter-network.
Without this "staying up late" phase, the technology might have stayed proprietary. We could have ended up with a world where you could only email people on the same provider as you, sort of like how iMessage and Android still fight today. The Wizards chose a path of interoperability that changed human history.
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Correcting the Record: Common Myths
There's a persistent myth that the ARPANET was built to survive a nuclear war. While the Pentagon (through ARPA) funded it, and survivability was a benefit of decentralization, the primary drivers were actually academic and resource-sharing. The guys in the labs weren't thinking about the Cold War; they were thinking about how to share a high-speed printer or a rare database.
Another misconception? That it happened overnight. It took over a decade of grinding work before it felt even remotely like a "network."
Why You Should Care Today
In 2026, we are at a similar crossroads with AI and decentralized web protocols. The "Wizards" of today are staying up late trying to figure out how to make Large Language Models more efficient or how to secure blockchain transactions without burning down the planet.
The lesson from BBN and the ARPA era is that the best tech usually comes from small, highly motivated teams who are given the freedom to fail. It wasn't managed by a committee of bureaucrats. It was managed by people who were obsessed with the "how."
Actionable Insights for Tech Enthusiasts and Historians
If you want to dive deeper into the world where wizards stay up late, don't just read the Wikipedia summary.
- Read the RFCs: Start with RFC 1 and RFC 3. They are surprisingly readable and show the humble beginnings of internet governance.
- Look into the Hardware: Search for photos of the Honeywell DDP-516, which was the "brain" inside the first IMPs. It looks like a prop from a 1960s sci-fi movie.
- Study the BBN Culture: Research how Bolt Beranek and Newman operated. They were an "intellectual playground" that prioritized curiosity over immediate profit—a rare model in today's corporate world.
- Trace the Geography: Look at the original 4-node map (UCLA, SRI, UCSB, and Utah). It’s a reminder that the internet started as a very small, physical thing before it became a global "cloud."
The internet isn't a cloud. It's a series of tubes, wires, and decisions made by people who stayed up way too late in the 1960s. Understanding those decisions helps us navigate the mess we're in now. If you want to build the next big thing, start by looking at how the first big thing was actually built—piece by piece, packet by packet, in a lab filled with empty coffee cups.
Next Steps for Deep Research:
- Locate a copy of the 1996 edition of "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" for the most raw, unpolished technical descriptions.
- Visit the Computer History Museum's online archives to see the original ARPANET diagrams.
- Compare the original TCP/IP specifications to modern QUIC protocols to see how much (and how little) has changed in 40 years.