Communications of the ACM
Still Networking
Credit: Alexander Berg
ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Bob Metcalfe—engineer, entrepreneur, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin—is embarking on his sixth career, as a Computational Engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is always willing to tell the story of his first career, as a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where, in 1973, Metcalfe and then-graduate student David Boggs invented Ethernet, a standard for connecting computers over short distances. In the ensuing years, thanks in no small part to Metcalfe's entrepreneurship and advocacy, Ethernet has become the industry standard for local area networks.
Leah Hoffmann spoke to Metcalfe about the development of Ethernet and what it has meant for the future of connectivity.
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