From the outside, room 3420 at UCLA's Boelter Hall campus looks rather nondescript - housing what looks like a large typrwriter and a cupboard stuffed with old electronics.However, this is in fact the birthplace of the internet - and where the first message was sent from.On October 29, 1969 at 10:30pm, Leonard Kleinrock and his team sent a message to Stanford University using what we know know as the internet - only to find in crash after two letters.THE BIRTH OF THE INTERNET
While a grad student at MIT, Kleinrock developed a mathematical theory of packet switching, where data is broken up into 'packets' that can be exchanged over a network to allow users in multiple locations to access them.
The research was spotted by the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA—later named DARPA), which wanted to use it to distribute academic papers.
It wanted to test a network, and a contract was awarded to a team of computer engineers at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), who built the Interface Message Processor, which was similar to the routers still used today.
The first node was placed at UCLA. the second at Stanford.
the first message was supposed to be 'log in', but their first success also spelled their first failure – the system crashed after the 'L' and 'O' were transmitted.About an hour later, having recovered from the crash, the SDS Sigma 7 computer sent a full 'login'.The first permanent ARPANET link was then established on November 21, 1969, between the IMP (interface message processor) at UCLA and the IMP at the Stanford Research Institute.By December of 1969, four nodes were permanently installed at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, University of Utah, and University of California at Santa Barbara. By 1975 there were 57 IMPs. By 1981 there were 213, and it has continued to explode inpopularity ever since. 
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A detailed view of UCLA's Interface Message Processor (IMP) is pictured in a storage closet, where it had been stored for over 20 years, at 3420 Boelter Hall in UCLA
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A detailed view of UCLA's Interface Message Processor (IMP) is seen in a storage closet, where it had been stored for over 20 years, at 3420 Boelter Hall in UCLA
'How many revolutions can you think about where you can see—within a few feet!—where it began? This machine is where the internet breathed to life, spoke its first words,' Leonard Kleinrock, the computer scientist for whom the Kleinrock Center for Internet Studies is named, told Gizmodo.However, Kleinrock admits the machines were almost lost.There are currently only two IMPs still in existence. UCLA's IMP was replaced by new technology in 1982 and moved to a staff break room. 
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The tiny mention of the project in the University paper was the only mention of it at the time
He also managed to save a SDS Sigma 7 computer, the refrigerator-sized machine that was used to host that first message.The restored room was first opened in 2011, after being converted to a computer lab for current students, and was restored by the original team - who even matched the paint for photographs.'We didn't know what we were doing,' says Kleinrock. 'We didn't even take a photo.' The only mention of the world-changing experiment was a small item in the school paper. 
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UCLA's Interface Message Processor (IMP) is pictured in the birthplace of the Internet, at 3420 Boelter Hall, the original location of the first ARPANET node at UCLA in Los Angeles.
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Professor Leonard Kleinrock, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA is shown next to UCLA's Interface Message Processor (IMP)
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A plaque placed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is pictured at the birthplace of the Internet
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A visitor compares modern-day 3420 Boelter Hall, the birthplace of the Internet, with an archival photograph during the grand opening of the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site at UCLA in Los Angeles, California October 29, 2011. The first message to pass over the ARPANET was sent from 3420 Boelter Hall on October 29, 1969 led by UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock and his team. The ARPANET evolved into the Internet we use today. REUTERS/Fred Prouser (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS TELECOMS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY) - RTR2TEKP
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A visitor attends the grand opening of the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site and Archive in 3420 Boelter Hall, the birthplace of the Internet at UCLA in Los Angeles, California October 29, 2011. The first message to pass over the ARPANET was sent from 3420 Boelter Hall on October 29, 1969 led by UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock and his team. The recreated lab features a replica of the Sigma 7 computer (L), a teletype (C) similar to one used to communicate with the SIGMA 7 computer, which was connected to UCLA's Interface Message Processor (R). The ARPANET evolved into the Internet we use today.
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This is the power distribution unit on the Interface Message Processor, taken at the grand re-opening of the original Boelter 3420 lab at UCLA, the birthplace of the Internet
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