38 Comments
- stevetherobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Oddly enough, I was flipping through the book 'Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet' this morning and read the story of the founding of Cisco. According to the quotes in the book, both Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner denied inventing the router. They claimed that they only improved and expanded it. And despite the old claim by Cisco that the router was invented to allow Len and Sandy to communicate across campus, they stated that it was invented to allow all students to work and do research from any computer center on campus. Later Len and Sandy were forced out of Cisco by the venture capitalist that made Cisco possible.
- Daem0nX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11It's one thing to take and adapt or 're-invent' and idea or product, but to take credit for it when you shouldn't - that sucks.
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12He looks like Magneto
- skarps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I believe this same thing happen to the guy that invented the CD-ROM. This happens every day in buisness, my brother has invented a lot of stuff for the company that he works for and he doens't get credit for any of it. If you look at it from the other standpoint, he probably wouldn't have invented anything without the help of the company.
- JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Still, the router inventor should get a payday, or official recognition from Cisco at the very least. The stuff your brother invented probably hasn't fundamentally changed the way the world communicates.
- mancat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Very cool find. I really enjoyed this reading, as old networking hardware is always cool in my book.
Another interesting fact here: the first Cisco routers and Sun workstations were based on the same exact 68k "Stanford Reference" board design. It may have even been the same 68k multibus board he was using, though I thought the first Stanford 68k boards were VME.
We really owe a lot to Stanford, and everyone that developed these technologies there.
The article refers to the Sun SPARCstation Voyager as a "Spark Station." Oops. - fyre2012, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes, and Tim Paterson was the original creator of QDOS, which later turned into 86-DOS and soon thereafter, MS-DOS 1.0
QDOS = Quick and Dirty Operating System
And he sold it to Bill for $50,000. Nice investment on mr. gates' part wouldn't ya say? - schwack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Great article. Worthy read of how IP started developing. Been in this business 20 years, and always respect the folks who laid the groundwork. Great to see he is still actively developing new technologies.
- Jams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Now this is what I deem an interesting read. Dig At least we all know who put in all the hard work!
- v3xt0r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5He should have learned from Larry Elison, or Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs even.
I bet you he stayed in school, and graduated, worked years to pay off his loans, and has nothing to show for it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah, he needed to drop out and steal technologies rather than graduate and do actualy work to CREATE new technology. The idjit.
- malliemcg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The stuff he is currently working on to me is more interesting than the router. I mean we have them now, excellent, but lets go on to use the technology as a base to build better and weirder applications. The last page is what got this article a diggity digg yo!
- darthrsg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3this guy is really l337
- digitalArtform, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I know the feeling.
http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2004/12/history_of_phot.html - modifiy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thats close to what i remember hearing. I read a long time ago too that he was very bitter when cisco had its boom and was raking in the money because he took such a small pay out and wished he would have held out on the source longer.
- Randude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There was a post last week with a video about arpanet. http://www.digg.com/hardware/Rare_1972_Documentary_on_ARPAnet
On the documentary they talk about the concept of routers, but I believe they called them IMP's. Anyone remember seeing this? It seems that routers were around since the beginning. - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i knew it. i give him credit.
- stevester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0haha, i thought the same thing
- spanichs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thanks a lot .. dude ....
- dextroz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2this was going to be one of those articles where i'd digg for the underdog but your comment made me check the details out...
- panasan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good job, spanichs!!!
- stevetherobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I believe simonj is right. The book I mentioned above (Nerds 2.0.1), goes into more detail about this. I didn't read all of it, but as I recall, IMP's allowed connections between different universities on the Arpanet, but different computer systems on a university campus were still not able to communicate. Routers were developed to enable them to communicate.
- haochi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I hate these things...Go to court, boys.
- wilkeson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I thought the most interesting part of the article was this:
"My colleague says 'Bill, go to this URL.' I do. An image of his mobile phone appears on my laptop. He says 'press the menu key.' I do. I'm looking at his menu. He says 'take a picture.' I do. A picture of him appears. We've really gotten into these operating systems, how they work. We can totally control mobile phones from other devices."
Now that's a digg worthy topic. - stevetherobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I believe simonj is right. The book I mentioned above (Nerds 2.0.1), goes into more detail about this. I didn't read all of it, but as I recall, IMP's allowed connections between different universities on the Arpanet, but different computer systems on a university campus were still not able to communicate. Routers were developed to enable them to communicate.
- SirBriggs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1WTF? They were in love so they designed the router to talk?
- simonj, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I'm not a network guy , but I think that difference is that to use IMP's you need a Host-IMP protocol application or what you call it. Also your source and destination computers uses same protocol and have the same network type indeed. But the main argument in that story about Cisco guys was that network types they used were different and not compatible with each other.
IMP's (Interface Message Processors) were minicomputers that were used for datagram transmission between end points in ARPANET. IMPs could find an other route if some nodes were destroyed, so they needed to support an or an other algorithm for adaptive routing.
Now you see that there's different intentions with routers and IMPs - compatibility with the first one and reliability with the second. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I need to update my list.
The Pirates of Silicon Valley
-Microsoft
-Apple
-Cisco
k - osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1and to remind each other to feed the cats.
- stevetherobot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Oops, sorry mancat. I meant to digg your comment and clicked on the wrong button.
- stokestack, on 10/12/2007, -11/+7"That's life" because not enough people stand up against it. DO SOMETHING.
Like posting this on Digg. It's a small step, but it's something.
"Life" is getting pretty ***** because only a few of us have the backbone to look at the daily rip-offs, rights infringements, and privacy invasions and say ENOUGH; THERE WILL BE RETRIBUTION.
Do you like paying teller fees, being unable to use the media you paid for, replacing the pathetic plastic bumpers on your car after the slightest impact, being charged a monthly fee just for the privilege of having long-distance service, and otherwise watching what you've worked for be grabbed at and leeched away? We're all enduring these things now because so few people stood up for themselves and said SCREW YOU; I'LL GO ELSEWHERE. - Gigadafud, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2okay that is a cool article. but could they have taken some dumber pictures on the first 3 pages?! geez the guy looks like like an idiot in those pictures. at least make him look like a non-turd that he deserves!!
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4See , the first use of the router is for cybersex between Len and Sandy..
- genduke, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Thats why we have these little things called patents.
- illu45, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6Wow... only 29 diggs to the frontpage?
Anyhow, nice story, although way too long, IMO. Still its interesting to see how different the first router was, and how the thought process behind its development.
As far as the theft of credit goes: Companies steal ideas all the time. So do people. Yes, it sucks. That's life. - CorpT, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2What's a Magneto?
- RezSav, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4lol, good ol chuck. didn't he have a tv show called Karate Kommandos back in the 80's? "I'm Chuck Yeager, and remember that only you can prevent forest fires" lol, the yeager-meister


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