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Ethernet Creator Makes the Inventors Hall of Fame

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the making-the-grade dept.

An anonymous reader wrote in with a Network World story that opens, "Ethernet is right up there with magnetic resonance imaging, the LP record, air bags, and soft contact lenses. So says the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which included Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the ubiquitous LAN technology, in its latest round of inductees."

5 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, Xerox PARC ... by Gopal.V · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The technology center that gave birth to so many of the corner stones of modern computing ... the mouse GUI, the laser printer (yeah, xerox ...), ethernet and if I may say so - object oriented programming.

    I'm not sure what it proves, but it does prove that when you're not thinking about immediate profit, there's so much you can do - but if you don't somebody'll pull the funding on you (and kick themselves years later).

    What were they working in the nineties ? IPV6 ?

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
  2. Some of Bob Metcalfe's latest work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/06/21/ 990621opmetcalfe.html

    enjoy...

  3. Re:"I invented the internet" by Doc+Hoss · · Score: 1, Insightful

    aw crap...right when I post it I see it's "ethernet" instead of "internet"...guess I should read a little before posting, eh?

  4. Re:Kinda spoilt... by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Part of Metcalfe's problem is that - despite his technical qualifications, and the good fortune of having the right idea at the right time (ethernet) - he's an ideologue. Everything he looks at is filtered through his philosophical dogma, and he uses his columns as a bully pulpit to promote that ideology, rather than as an opportunity to explore and consider new ideas. He's got an agenda that gives him the same sort of tunnel vision and myopia that the worst fawning Apple fanboy, snotty Microsoft apologist, or strident BSD partisan has.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  5. Re:Kinda spoilt... by LihTox · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's the problem with a lot of these one-hit-wonders that clamber onto the public stage via some specific talent and then feel qualified to have a publicly worthwhile opinion on everything else.

    Everyone's allowed to have a public opinion about anything (cf Slashdot). Point your finger instead at the people who give Metcalfe a platform to express said political opinions, based solely on his technological background.