[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Steve Crocker

    > I have no problem referring to the Arpanet IMPs as routers. ... So,
    > when explaining things to a modern audience

I'm waiting for the news stories about the 'COVID bacterium'. Oh, and about
the latest 'atom' found in the LHC.

I trust my point is semi-obvious, but if not: I think we do a dis-service to
the public when we don't use the correct terms, and urge them to do likewise.
("Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year old what he is doing is a
charlatan." - Dr. Felix Hoenikker) This margin is way too small for a full
discussion of this important point, alas.

I understand that one might not want to emit, and the listener might not be
interested in receiving, a lesson on the ISO model (upgraded to include
separate 'network' and 'internetwork' layers - in its original form, it's
broken), so one can clearly define why an IMP is not a router. So, one could
just say 'it's a packet switch; it's like a router, but with an important
difference'.

The apparatus that Hahn and Strassmann (with the later assistance of Lise
Meitner, who was in Denmark at the time) used to discover fission wasn't a
'reactor', either, although it did split atoms.

	Noel