Paul Baran, RIP.

John Kristoff jtk at cymru.com
Tue Mar 29 03:08:20 UTC 2011


On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:14:18 -0400 (EDT)
Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

> Oh hell; now we'll *never* lay the ghost of "packet switching was
> invented to create a nuclear-war-survivable network".

Maybe you're confusing the invention of packet switching with the
creation of the ARPANET?  Survivability, particular to "enemy attack",
was a prime motivator for Baran's original ideas as published in he
IEEE Transactions of Communications 1964 paper.  ARPANET's motivation
was apparently very different.  The Network World article looks to be
factually accurate to me. Looks like this was used as a primary source
for the article:

  <http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.list.html>

John




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