Re: What major companies today got early funding from DARPA.

As you note, DARPA has funded or partially funded many companies to work on a huge number of technologies over the course of the last 40 years (DARPA, formerly ARPA, will be 40 years old on March 27, 1998). Digging out even a semi-complete list of the companies that got money from DARPA and the products or technologies they developed using that money would require some work, but much of the information is readily available on the Internet. If you start with DARPA itself, you'll find it has quite an extensive set of information on its technical and support offices. To get a list of the important technologies DARPA has sponsored over the years I'd begin by contacting the DARPA Contracts Management Office or the people behind the 40th anniversary celebration, both of which, I am sure have lists of the DARPA-sponsored projects they consider most important. The 40th anniversary people are likely to be a good source because they have just completed putting together an historical exhibit of DARPA-funded projects.

In addition, if you use the search engines you'll uncover many, many descriptions by companies of technologies and products that have been sponored by DARPA. Using HotBot I searched for "DARPA history company" and got hundreds of valid hits -- things ranging from Electric Vehicles to electric-powered aerobots to wargames to blue-green laser diodes. Among the companies, you'll find the old and the new, the big and the small.

I gather from your question, however, that you're most interested in the work that DARPA sponsored that has to do with computers and networking. DARPA has sponsored a lot of this over the years and there are many good "Histories of the Internet" that talk at length about how the Internet came to be, describing the companies and people that were involved. DARPA (ARPA) is mentioned repeatedly since Arpanet was the direct predecessor to the Internet. Try, for example, the Charles Babbage Institute of Computer History and Michael Hauben's History of ARPANET for starters. All of them contain references to the people and companies that benefitted from DARPA's largesse.

I really think, though, that contacting DARPA directly is your best bet.

I hope this helps.