[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

[Greg Skinner]

Hi Barbara,

I remember those cisco AGS boxes appeared at SRI sometime around the summer of 1986.  Some of the SRI staff who maintained them called them ‘routers’.  As time went on, that name stuck.  They may have provided access to BARRnet, the SF bay area NSFnet regional network.

—gregbo

> On Nov 23, 2021, at 9:19 PM, Barbara Denny <b_a_denny at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> I think the change from router to gateway in the networking community was suggested somewhere in the 1983-1986 timeframe .? I am using the final report for the Reconstitution Protocol project? to jog my memory.? ?I remember Jim Mathis telling me about this change in terminology because there was at least one other device, called a gateway, that provided a translation like functionality and people didn't want to create more confusion.? I also don't think we would have used the word gateway during the RP project if router was the accepted term when we started. I am pretty sure we also were using the AGS Cisco boxes? in? the fall of 1986 for a different SRI project so I think the change in naming was?underway by then. I don't remember feeling any surprise at Cisco's use of the word router to describe their product.
> It is interesting to remember that BGP as an experimental RFC wasn't released until 1989 so we still had the term gateway hanging around for quite a while afterwards.? I don't mean to ignore IGRP and EIGRP either. Then there is also Lixia Zhang's? paper on "How to Build a Gateway" dated April 1987.
> barbara
>    On Tuesday, November 23, 2021, 10:39:31 AM PST, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:  
> 
> Sorry, I wasn't clear -- the incident I recalled about the sales people 
> and "gateway" versus "router" was probably a few years later - early 
> 80s.? We always called them "gateways" until then.? Jack
> 
> On 11/22/21 1:34 PM, vinton cerf wrote:
>> your memory and mine are coincident?- i had the impression that 
>> "router" came from Cisco Systems but that had to be after 1984. If you 
>> introduced the term "router" in 1977 that would certainly be early. I 
>> stuck with "gateways" for quite a while after the 1977 three network 
>> demonstration.
>> 
>> v
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 3:50 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history 
>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org 
>> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> ? ? 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
>> ? ? <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
>> 
>> 
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