Leonard Kleinrock On The Origins of Packet Switching

An Anonymous Coward writes: "From Ben Sullivan's Tech Blog (http://www.techblog.com). An email from Leonard Kleinrock on why he really was the brains behind packet switching. It's a first-hand account from Kleinrock in a blog. A neat little journalistic scoop for bloggers, and some insights for techheads on Internet history."

Comments

Another way of looking at it

[Bob Smith 157]

I think I now understand why Davies was so hung up on the issue. He had developed a one-node packet switch in the UK before the ARPANET was deployed. Unfortunately, the UK would not provide enough financial support to Davies so that he could expand his one-node switch into an operational network. Had they done so, the Internet might have been born in the UK; instead his work was stalled and could not go forward. This must have been very frustrating for him.

That would have been interesting. Britain as the home of the Internet.

The possibilities of an alternate history are fascinating.

In any case some of it is a matter of research being done in parallel, which means that these sort of debates will take place as a matter of course.