French memories about the ARPANET: a conversation with Michel Élie and Gérard Le Lann

Abstract

Although the ARPANET was a United States-funded project that was deeply rooted in US post-war science and technology policies, it had an international dimension from its very early days. The memories of Michel Élie and Gérard Le Lann are oriented towards their US experience. They testify to an early French presence in the ARPANET project at two stages of its history: in 1969–1970, when the first nodes came into activity, and in 1973–1974, when TCP, which evolved into TCP/IP and became the Internet’s flagship protocol, was defined, replacing NCP, which was at the heart of the ARPANET. They thus highlight crucial but different sides of the ARPANET’s genesis.