Early computers were a really large, expensive, and intensively energy-consuming technology—which meant that they weren't particularly accessible to many people. Time-sharing was a way to allow multiple users to simultaneously access and use the same computer, bringing down the cost of access by having a larger pool of users and maximizing efficient use of the machines. Early time-sharing systems were first developed in the 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and eventually developed into for-profit “time service bureaus” like Tymshare.

ARPANET further expanded upon the principles of time sharing, initially hosting four network nodes at the Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara, the University of Utah, and UCLA. Watching The Heralds of Resource Sharing, a short documentary about the ARPANET, the dilemmas that they describe and created the ARPANET to solve don't seem entirely far removed from the ones that drive the use of cloud storage.

In 2011, UCLA's Kleinrock Center for Internet Studies decided to restore the room to its original appearance in the 1970s, or a reasonable approximation thereof. Most days of the year the room lies dormant, generally opened up for prospective-student tours and, apparently, people on vision quests who send emails asking for a tour. The room is actually only about half the size of its original dimensions, a carefully constructed diorama of artifacts and replicas of artifacts that were part of the original center.

Sam Kronick

The room is painted in the closest approximation of its color in archival photos, a pale industrial green that is somehow both soothing and sinister. It is the Muzak equivalent of the color green, a wall color that only could have been popular in the 1970s. Most of the period furniture was actually just taken out of UCLA's storage. Not all of the computer hardware from those days was kept in storage or considered historically relevant to preserve. The IMP is original, as is the first packet switch installed on the Arpanet, and the teletype. But the mainframe computer components are replicas, designed according to old specs.

In a strikingly accurate replica of the original IMP log (crafted by UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History) on one of the room's period desks is a note taken at 10:30 p.m., 29 October, 1969—“talked to SRI, host to host.” In the note, there is no sense of wonder at this event—which marks the first message sent across the ARPANET, and the primary reason the room is now deemed hallowed ground.

Room 3240 reminded me of another telecommunications landmark I'd visited while on the road: the Golden Spike National Monument in Promontory Summit, Utah, where the first transcontinental railroad united in 1869. The monument features two replica steam-powered trains, maintained by National Parks Service employees, that perform the task of going up and down a small railroad track on a daily schedule.