The computer scientist who helped develop a machine that would evolve to become the backbone of the internet died on April 27. He died at the age of 78.
His wife, Sara, said that the cause was related to mantle cell lymphoma.
The Interface Message Processor was built by a small team of talented young engineers. It was supposed to switch data among computers linked to the internet. The University of California, Los Angeles had the first I.M.P. The I.M.P.s were crucial to the internet until 1989.
The first computer programmers to work with the team were Mr. Walden and the I.M.P. guys.
The I.M.P.s were used to translate mainframe computers between different locations. I.M.P. translated what came over the network into the location's main computer language. The work of the I.M.P. evolved into a network.
They had no models to draw on, and they were creating out.
He said that they took a new idea and turned it into a machine with its own software and protocols that became an essential component of the network that grew to connect all of us.
In the southwest part of the state, David was born on June 7, 1942. His parents taught chemistry and physics at high school. The family moved to the Bay Area when Mr. Walden was young.
An avid bridge player from a young age, Mr. Walden helped support himself as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, by working at a local bridge club. His wife said that he left college because of poor grades because of his passion for the game.
Mr. Walden received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from San Francisco State College in 1964. His interest in computing grew when he worked on an IBM computer in a numerical analysis course.
He worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratories as a computer programmer in the Space Communications Division.
He met Sara Elizabeth Cowles in 1965, and they married the next year. He was hired by Bolt Beranek and Newman. The company won a contract to build the first I.M.P.
It was a very small group working together all the time, according to Mr. Walden in a 1990 interview with the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
He said that they were in and out of each other's offices.
He said that every discovery drew excitement.
He worked at Norsk Data for a year in 1970 before returning to Bolt Beranek. He became an expert in the field of management. He was an editor at the Annals of the History of Computing, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
He never thought he would get that kind of honor, but he did get an honor from California State University for his work on the Arpanet.
Mr. Walden is survived by his family, which includes his wife, his son, brother, sister, and two grandsons.
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