[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

Wed Nov 24 10:31:37 PST 2021

Introduction of the term "router" was (IMHO) nevertheless sufficient
for a sufficient terminology.

If someone wants to use todays strictest definition of "router",
then it would include only those features that are architecturally
happening up to layer 3 (IP/IPv6). Likewise, a clean "gateway"
would only involve any functions that on the gatewya at least
include a transport-level function.

This leaves out all the rich "hacks" we have introduced over
30 years into routers:
   NAT ?! (still argued in IETF whether thats a "clean"
           network layer function, but after 26 IPv4/IPv6
           NAT mechanisms...)
   DPI - Deep Packet inspection, starting from transport port
        based inspection.
   TCP fixups such as local rebuffering/retransmissions to overcome
       window size issues
   Accounting/Billing based on DPI (e.g.: IPFix, RTP perf-monitoring).
   Security based on DPI (filtering/ACL, but also
    more automated data models like MUD or captive portal
    on router functions).
   QoS/DiffServ based on DPI
   "Performance Routing" based on DPI

All very useful for business, all very crappy architecturally,
no drive to change / clean-up any of this though. *sigh*

Cheers
    Toerless

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 05:19:22AM +0000, Barbara Denny via Internet-history 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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> >
> 
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