Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing is a short documentary film from 1972, produced by Steven King and directed/edited by Peter Chvany, about ARPANET, an early packet-switching network and one of the first networks to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP.

Content

The 30 minute film features many of the most important names in computer networking, especially J. C. R. Licklider and others from MIT's Project MAC who had connected a computer to ARPANET the year before. According to a history of computing equipment by Columbia University it "begins with a montage of equipment ... and then has interviews with ARPANET creators." The film discusses "the potential that this network has for revolutionizing so many industries and institutions".

Participants

Speaking parts: Non-speaking: Unidentified:

Reception

Cory Doctorow called the documentary a "fantastic 30 minutes of paleo-nerd memorabilia". Matt Novak of Gizmodo said "When you hear a man like J.C.R. Licklider describe the information age before it had even begun to trickle into the public consciousness, we understand how forward-thinking these people developing the ARPANET in the late 1960s and early 1970s truly were." Mark Liberman described it as "amazing".