[ih] origins of the term "router"

[Tim Moors]

I'm wondering if some of the sages on this mailing list might be able
to shed some light on the origins of the term "router", in particular
why it was introduced as a term distinct from "(packet) switch" or
"gateway"?

The earliest reference to "router" that I can find in RFCs is in
RFC753 from March 1979, which discusses message (email) routers,
e.g. "The Router is responsible for maintaining sufficient topological
information to determine where to forward any incoming Message-Bag."
Such "application-level" routing is mentioned in several subsequent
RFCs.

The first reference to routers in the context of the "network layer"
appears in the April 1984 "Gateway SIG Meeting Notes" (RFC 898) in
which Jon Postel mentions "leaving the normal router kernel function
in charge of forwarding datagrams." and provides some history of "The
CMU Gateway" which ?became? a "router" in "Oct 83".  RFC 1001 also
mentions network layer routers, while RFC 1009 from June 1987 seems to
be the first to define and discuss technical details of such routers:

"A router is a switch that receives data transmission units from input
interfaces and, depending on the addresses in those units, routes them
to the appropriate output interfaces."  "Interface Message Processors
(IMPs) are packet-level routers."  "a gateway is an IP-level router"


Is there, perhaps, a relationship between the use of the term "router" 
and activity of that juggernaut of routers, Cisco? E.g. the first RFC to
mention Cisco is RFC985 from May 1986.


Tim Moors
http://www.ee.unsw.edu.au/~timm/
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia