Ethernet
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The first home computers - Scelbi,
Mark-8 Altair and IBM 5100
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By
Mary
Bellis
I came to work one day at MIT and
the computer had been stolen, so I called DEC to break the news to them
that this $30,000 computer that they'd lent me was gone. They thought this
was the greatest thing that ever happened, because it turns out that I
had in my possession the first computer small enough to be stolen! - Robert
Metcalfe on the trials and tribulations of inventing the Ethernet.
The ethernet is a system for connecting
computers within a building using hardware running from machine to machine.
It differs from the Internet,
which connects remotely located computers by telephone line, software protocol
and some hardware. Ethernet uses some software (borrowed from Internet
Protocol), but the connecting hardware was the basis of the patent
(#4,063,220) involving newly designed chips and wiring. The patent* describes
ethernet as a "multipoint data communication system with collision
detection".
Robert Metcalfe was a member of the
research staff for Xerox, at their Palo
Alto Research Center (PARC) where some of the first personal computers
were being made. Metcalfe was asked to build a networking system for PARC's
computers. Xerox's motivation for the computer network was that they were
also building the world's first laser printer and wanted all of the PARC's
computers to be able to print with this printer.
Robert Metcalfe had two challenges:
the network had to be fast enough to drive the very fast new laser printer;
and it had to connect hundreds of computers within the same building. Never
before had hundreds of computers been in the same building -- at that time
no one had more than one, two or maybe three computers in operation on
any one premise.
The press has often stated that ethernet
was invented on May 22, 1973, when Robert Metcalfe wrote a memo to his
bosses stating the possibilities of ethernet's potential, but Metcalfe
claims ethernet was actually invented very gradually over a period of several
years. In 1976, Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs (Metcalfe's assistant)
published a paper titled, "Ethernet: Distributed Packet-Switching For Local
Computer Networks."
Robert Metcalfe left Xerox in 1979
to promote the use of personal computers and local area networks (LANs).
He successfully convinced Digital Equipment, Intel, and Xerox Corporations
to work together to promote ethernet as a standard. Now an international
computer industry standard, ethernet is the most widely installed LAN protocol.
* U.S.
Patent #4,063,220 - Ethernet Patent
Multipoint data communication system
with collision detection.
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first home computers - Scelbi, Mark-8 Altair and IBM 5100
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©MaryBellis
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