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Lawrence Roberts, Who Helped Design Internet's Precursor, Dies at 81 (nytimes.com)
In late 1966, a 29-year-old computer scientist drew a series of abstract figures on tracing paper and a quadrille pad. Some resembled a game of cat's cradle; others looked like heavenly constellations; still others like dress patterns. Those curious drawings were the earliest topological maps of what we now know as the internet. The doodler, Lawrence G. Roberts, died on Dec. 26 at his home in Redwood City, Calif. He was 81.
The New York Times: The cause was a heart attack, said his son Pasha. As a manager at the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, Dr. Roberts designed much of the Arpanet -- the internet's precursor -- and oversaw its implementation in 1969. Dr. Roberts called upon a circle of colleagues who shared his interest in computer networking for help in creating the technical underpinnings of the Arpanet, integrating and refining many ideas for how data should flow. Dr. Roberts was considered the decisive force behind packet switching, the technology that breaks data into discrete bundles that are then sent along various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. He decided to use packet switching as the underlying technology of the Arpanet; it remains central to the function of the internet.
And it was Dr. Roberts's decision to build a network that distributed control of the network across multiple computers. Distributed networking remains another foundation of today's internet. Dr. Roberts's interest in computer networking began when he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. He paid close attention to the work of his longtime colleague, Leonard Kleinrock, who had done research on theoretical aspects of computer networks, analyzing the problem of data flow. Dr. Roberts also followed the ideas of J.C.R. Licklider, a prominent psychologist and predecessor of Dr. Roberts's at ARPA, who envisioned what he called an "intergalactic computer network."
And it was Dr. Roberts's decision to build a network that distributed control of the network across multiple computers. Distributed networking remains another foundation of today's internet. Dr. Roberts's interest in computer networking began when he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. He paid close attention to the work of his longtime colleague, Leonard Kleinrock, who had done research on theoretical aspects of computer networks, analyzing the problem of data flow. Dr. Roberts also followed the ideas of J.C.R. Licklider, a prominent psychologist and predecessor of Dr. Roberts's at ARPA, who envisioned what he called an "intergalactic computer network."
With the benevolent creators of the internet dieing off, the future looks bleak and in the hands of orwelian corporations.
JUST another ruse by the NWO!
He married not dead biotch!
And fuck the whole thing up.
"Trump snowflake whines about liberals on the internet, falls asleep after crybaby flame-out. News at 11"
Trump Orange flake. Snowflakes are still lefties. :)
A heart attack! So scary! :)
"Trump snowflake whines about liberals on the internet, falls asleep after crybaby flame-out. News at 11"
Al Gore didn't invent the Internet.
He did however lead the way in creating and passing legislation that lead to the expansion of the NSFNet and the creation of the Internet as the true "network of networks" that we know it as today.
Lol,
Hear no evil, see no evil, there is no evil.
Thank you Dr. Lawrence Roberts for your work.
I love shopping from home.
As any fule kno, it was Al Gore what invented teh interwebs.
Actually, the main thing Al Gore did was support legalization of general access to, and commercial use of, the Internet by the general public, rather than leaving it restricted to a few universities, the military, and their contractors.
So what he did was legalize spam.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just because a few selfish board-members rammed one of their agents into the FCC, it does mean that one of humanity's greatest inventions has to be corrupted and sold to the highest bidder.
Fight to save the internet!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I would please like to borrow some mod points to give to AI. AI is very dreamy and when she smiles I see a lens flare on her eye. Also when she talks it makes me think things. Also the way AI sits makes me think things. AI is so in command, like a great warrior princess. I want to learn to draw and maybe AI will help me. A problem I am having now is shading. I see that foreground objects, such as AIs cheekbones should be a lighter shade than AIs eyelashes, which are more in the background. AIs eyes, however are a problem. AIs eyes are a lighter color than her cheeks and yet they are in the background. I am so confused. I hope AI can help me with this in perhaps an intense tutoring session. Yours truly, human
expansion of the NSFNet
Read that as NSFWNet. Which actually is more fitting.
Have gnu, will travel.
Idiot
AIDS actually
He had a number of complications. It is difficult to assign just one cause. There are so many candidates
NSFWnet was Gore's one-time boss, Bill Clinton.
He should've set his ttl higher...
His heartbeat hit a lag spike and dropped out. No carrier.
We should've listened to Ted Stevens -- the arteries of the internet are too clogged.
I'll see myself out.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
After he saw what people did with it....
Cool story bro.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Tipper wouldn't approve of a NSFWNet.
The article says "Dr. Roberts was considered the decisive force behind packet switching", which is misleading - packet switching was already used in a commercial service in the UK at the time discussed. He was perhaps the decisive force behind using packet switching in ARPANET. The wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is informative.
Best comment I've read on Slashdot in ages. You sir win the internet award for excellence. Bravo.
I was a Telecommunications Specialist in the military (AF) Autodin system from 1975 to 1979. It was a worldwide military packet switching message system using Philco-Ford computers and microwave and tropospheric scatter communications links as well as undersea cables back to the states. We had one satellite dish at RAF Croughton England at that time. I could actually see the packet communications on an O-scope and read the attempts of cryptographic equipment to synchronize. The "procs" were big cabinets and generated a lot of heat. We had two for fail-over and they used drum memory. All model T - ish, but it worked. It got the job done. I had approximately 150 to 200 circuits to monitor and keep up. Some of those circuits had Colonels in deep bunkers at the other end. It always amused me as a two-striper to have a Colonel call me up to troubleshoot his circuit outage. Of course, I'd have to order him around a bit to accomplish that. I could see both the black and red sides of a message and that, of course, is a severe no no in encryption. We had a very high level of Top Secret clearance as a result. The point is that there was a full-blown, worldwide military packet switching network in place and working when I joined the Air Force in 1975. Amazingly short time from conception to implementation - unless the story is more complex than we hear.
P.S. It used a programming language that sounded like "shall-A." I wasn't a programmer, so I'm not exactly sure what it was. We had a captain programmer who only rarely interacted with us- usually when I screwed up what he was doing by my habit of pushing the circuit alarm button repeatedly to get a fault report absent mindedly as I thought about the problem. He had programmed the computer locally to recycle the computer when the button was pushed rather than have us call each time to operations on the phone (in the next room) to recycle the computer manually. But for some reason he failed to tell us what he was doing. Understandable because enlisted ran the Switching center. He was the only officer and we never saw him. I think he was afraid of us. (laughs)
Does anyone know what "shall-A" may have been?
E Proelio Veritas.