A closer look
Getting early computers to talk to each other was like forcing aggressive rival cults to share a single kitchen. In 1969, ARPANET solved this via the 1822 protocol and specialized hardware called Interface Message Processors (IMPs). Instead of begging IBM, DEC, and SDS mainframes to natively understand each other's proprietary, heavily guarded code, the military forced them to talk to a neutral IMP box first. It was basically a giant, militarized translation layer that told the tech monopolies to stop bickering and standardize, accidentally birthing the foundations of network routing.
