25 Years of TCP/IP on the Internet
On January 1st, 1983 the ARPANET officially switched over from using NCP (Network Control Protocol) to TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol). This followed a year where the ARPANET supported a mix of NCP and TCP/IP machines using relay servers that supplied Telnet, FTP, and mail services across the two protocols. While the Telnet and FTP services were very similar between the two protocols, mail service was much improved thanks to the recently developed SMTP standard. Before that, mail messages were moved around using a protocol on top of FTP. Although NCP only lasted about 12 years, TCP/IP has lasted more than twice as long with no signs of going away any time soon.
