How was the 1965 WAN connection between two computers different than the packet-switched ARPANET? [feedly]

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How was the 1965 WAN connection between two computers different than the packet-switched ARPANET?
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In the essay "Brief History of the Internet," this event is noted:

[...] in 1965 working with Thomas Merrill, Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in Mass. to the Q-32 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line creating the first (however small) wide-area computer network ever built.

So, a computer was connected to another remote computer via phone lines.

How was this functionally different than the ARPANET which would come four years later (in 1969)? I realize that packet-switching was a key feature of the ARPANET, but functionally it simply achieved the same thing as this experiment: a computer connecting to another computer remotely.

For a non-networking professional, what are the major points of differentiation between these two situations? How was the ARPANET superior to this situation?

(Note: I realize that it must have been, I just don't know why...)

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