[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

[Guy Almes]

Noel,
   That's consistent with my memory.

   Recall that Cisco's first big product was the AGS, where the G stood 
for Gateway.
   I remember the word 'gateway' being used to refer to packet 
forwarders at various levels in the protocol stack.
   Eventually, roughly 1987-88, people started to be careful to use 
'router' to refer to a level-3 gateway and 'bridge' to a level-2 gateway.
   And there were application-level gateways such as the various email 
gateways, including the wonderful box that JANET had in London that 
reversed the DNS names.

   A later language shift came a few years later, when the word 'bridge' 
became old-fashioned and people (or was this just marketing?) began to 
use the word 'switch' to refer to a high-performance bridge.  And, 
later, the word 'switch' was used also for level-3 packet forwarding.
   I do not recall where that came from, but did notice it.

	-- Guy

On 11/22/21 6:57 PM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>  
> 
>      > From: Jack Haverty
> 
>      > Back in 1977 Ginny's system was called a "gateway", but later was
>      > renamed a "router". ... 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".
> 
> I have a very definite memory (although not as detailed as would be optimal)
> that the IETF community became disenchanted with the term 'gateway' for
> 'internetworking level packet switch' (the PUP people had earlier called
> those 'gateways' too - although 'media gateway' was their verbose, specific
> term - they also had 'protocol gateways'), because all sorts of people
> started to pop up with boxes they called 'gateways', but which performed a
> wide range of different functions (usually application level - many of them
> for email), so one had no idea what someone _meant_ when they said 'and in
> here we have a gateway'.
> 
> So we decided we needed a new term; and 'router' (I don't recall who
> suggested it, alas - too bad we don't have the internet working group amail
> archives - or maybe we'd transitioned to the IETF mailing list by then) was
> short and snappy, and everyone liked it, so it was adapted by acclamation.
> 
> It should be possible to track this by looking at early RFC's, which I'll
> do in a second.
> 
> 	Noel
> -- 
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