Meet The Grandaddy of All Internet Routers

It might look like an oversized gym locker, but the wires and circuitry housed in this giant metal cabinet (full image below) make up the world’s very first Internet router. Developed as an essential part of ARPANET, the experimental military communication network that gave rise to the the LOLcat-filled Interwebs of today, these machines, called Interface Message Processors (IMP), formed the first nodal access points that eventually branched out and evolved into the world wide web.