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Celebrating The Origins of Packet Switching

Posted by timothy on from the let's-meet-up-at-the-next-node dept.

XaN-ASMoDi writes with an interesting historical piece at the BBC on the early history of packet switching, excerpting: "It has often been said that change is the only constant in the 21st Century. And there is little doubt that the restless tone of these times is something that the web has helped to accelerate, but the only reason that [...] the web can cope with that punishing pace is thanks to work done four decades ago by British mathematician Donald Davies at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL). On 5 August 1968 Dr Davies gave the first public presentation of work he had been doing on a method of moving data around computer networks called 'packet switching.'"

4 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Celebrate? by cpicon92 · · Score: 1, Funny

    I bet that guy from Sony would love to go back in time and stop this from happening.

  2. The Dawn of The Net by drkfdr · · Score: 2, Funny

    made me realize the intarnet is not tubes at all

    1. Re:The Dawn of The Net by fucket · · Score: 3, Funny

      You put the packets in the tubes.

  3. Re:Packet switching at NPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Why is this article about packet switching? It should be titled "Rare photo of Anonymous Coward's father found". And tell us how crack physiognomists are using the image to create a likeness of the elusive AC.