[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

[Jack Haverty]

Watching Jeopardy from November 17, 2021, I was surprised to see a 
"clue" which was a picture of Len Kleinrock standing in front of the 
ARPANET IMP which has been preserved at UCLA.  It was a clue under the 
category "It's a New Machine".

The host read the clue:

"In 1969, Leonard Kleinrock and his team sent the first message over the 
Internet with the first THIS, which now connects devices like modems."

None of the contestants knew the answer, although one guessed 
"backbone", which isn't a bad guess.  So the guest revealed the answer:

"You're looking at the first router."

My immediate reaction was "No, you're not!    That's an IMP."

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmv1WKMGcDw starting at about 1:29

That's not quite like I remember it.  Ginny Strazisar built the first 
switching device for the Internet to connect the ARPANET to the Packet 
Radio net, circa 1977.  To me that was the genesis of the "Internet" - 
INTERconnecting of NETworks of a variety of types, using TCP/IP to glue 
it all together.   But millions of people just learned otherwise.

A historical tidbit -- Back in 1977 Ginny's system was called a 
"gateway", but later was renamed a "router".   It's possible that I did 
the renaming.  At BBN we were selling lots of packet switches, and 
sometimes customers asked for ideas on how to use their LANs in the 
network.  Our sales people would tell them about the research 
activities, and the role of gateways, TCP/IP , and the Internet. But in 
many customers' minds that term "gateway"  immediately set off alarm 
bells, because they had prior bad experience with "gateways" in their 
IBM networks, and didn't want anything to do with more "gateways".   So 
I suggested calling them "routers" instead of "gateways", and suddenly 
the marketplace became much more willing to listen.

Enjoy,
Jack Haverty