Packet Radio Van

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SRI's Packet Radio Van SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg
SRI's Packet Radio Van

The Packet Radio Van was a GMC van refitted by Don Cone at SRI International, and equipped with technology that was used in the first two-way internetworked transmission on August 27, 1976, and the first three-way internetworked transmission on November 22, 1977, the latter of which is considered[ citation needed ] the start of the Internet.

Contents

Background

The van was created as part of DARPA's PRNET project, which developed the world's first mobile ad hoc network. It was a mobile packet radio laboratory that housed one of the PRNET radio nodes, to simulate the needs of in-the-field military to connect to the network. As DARPA further wished to connect the disparate computers at its various contractors, and indeed globally, there was a push to test internetworking - connecting different communications protocols via the Internet protocol suite. The van played a unique role in the very first demonstration of the Internet. [1]

Equipment

The GMC van, designed by Don Cone, resembled a bread van and contained all of the equipment needed to be an ARPANET node via packet radio, including a Digital Equipment Corporation DEC LSI-11 16-bit minicomputer. [1] Other equipment included a shielded generator, flexible equipment racks, and air conditioning. [2] Due to his contributions around that time, Cone was promoted to Research Engineer. [3]

Transmissions

The first two-network TCP/IP transmission was between the van and ARPANET on August 27, 1976; the van was parked next to Rossotti's (since 1956, officially the "Alpine Inn"), a well-known Portola Valley, California biker bar, and wires were run to one of the picnic tables. [4] [5] The location was chosen as to be far enough from SRI in Menlo Park, California to be "remote" but close enough to have good radio contact. [1]

This first true Internet transmission occurred on November 22, 1977, when SRI originated the first connection between three disparate networks. Data flowed seamlessly through the mobile van at SRI in Menlo Park, California and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles via London, England, across three types of networks: packet radio, satellite, and the ARPANET. [6]

The van was also the site of the first experiments (primarily by Earl Craighill and Tom Magill) with Voice over IP through ARPA's Network Speech Compression Program around 1977 to 1978. They focused on how to compress speech such that it still sounded "natural" and arrived in a timely manner. [1] The phone in the van was a Mickey Mouse phone. [1]

Legacy

The van was parked unused for a decade in a back lot of the SRI campus until the planning of a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Internet in 1997 at the Internet Supercomputer Conference in San Jose, California. SRI employees Don Alves and Don Nielson cleaned, licensed, and replenished the van's radio and Internet equipment. The van was exhibited on the convention floor and was popular with attendees. SRI donated the van to the Computer History Museum to prevent further deterioration. [1]

In 2007, the Computer History Museum presented a 30th anniversary celebration of this demonstration, which included several participants of the 1977 event. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Internet</span>

The history of the Internet has its origin in the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and devices on the Internet, arose from research and development in the United States and involved international collaboration, particularly with researchers in the United Kingdom and France.

Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interconnected networks is called an internetwork, or simply an internet.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.

The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and the Internet Protocol (IP). Early versions of this networking model were known as the Department of Defense (DoD) model because the research and development were funded by the United States Department of Defense through DARPA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Packet radio</span> Form of amateur radio data communications using the AX25 protocol

In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital data via a radio communication link.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Router (computing)</span> Device that forwards data packets between computer networks

A router is a computer and networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks, including internetworks such as the global Internet.

In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. packets, that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the packet to its destination, where the payload is extracted and used by an operating system, application software, or higher layer protocols. Packet switching is the primary basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raytheon BBN</span> American research and development company

Raytheon BBN is an American research and development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ARPANET</span> Early packet switching network (1969–1990)

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Kahn (computer scientist)</span> American computer scientist and Internet pioneer (born 1938)

Bob Kahn is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SRI International</span> American scientific research institute (founded 1946)

SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region.

Peter Thomas Kirstein was a British computer scientist who played a role in the creation of the Internet. He made the first internetworking connection on the ARPANET in 1973, by providing a link to British academic networks, and was instrumental in defining and implementing TCP/IP alongside Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer network</span> Network that allows computers to share resources and communicate with each other

A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. Computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are made up of telecommunication network technologies based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency methods that may be arranged in a variety of network topologies.

Virgil Donald Cone was a technician and later researcher at SRI International who developed and ran the Packet Radio Van that was used in the first ARPANET internetworked transmission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NPL network</span> Historical network in England pioneering packet switching

The NPL network, or NPL Data Communications Network, was a local area computer network operated by a team from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London that pioneered the concept of packet switching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SATNET</span> Early computer network that used satellite communication

SATNET, also known as the Atlantic Packet Satellite Network, was an early satellite network that formed an initial segment of the Internet. It was implemented by BBN Technologies under the direction of ARPA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PRNET</span>

The Packet Radio Network (PRNET) was a set of early, experimental mobile ad hoc networks whose technologies evolved over time. It was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Major participants in the project included BBN Technologies, Hazeltine Corporation, Rockwell International's Collins division, and SRI International.

The International Network Working Group (INWG) was a group of prominent computer science researchers in the 1970s who studied and developed standards and protocols for interconnection of computer networks. Set up in 1972 as an informal group to consider the technical issues involved in connecting different networks, its goal was to develop an international standard protocol for internetworking. INWG became a subcommittee of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) the following year. Concepts developed by members of the group contributed to the Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication proposed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974 and the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) that emerged later.

The Protocol Wars were a long-running debate in computer science that occurred from the 1970s to the 1990s, when engineers, organizations and nations became polarized over the issue of which communication protocol would result in the best and most robust networks. This culminated in the Internet–OSI Standards War in the 1980s and early 1990s, which was ultimately "won" by the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) by the mid-1990s when it became the dominant protocol suite through rapid adoption of the Internet.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nielson, Don (February 2002). "The SRI Van and Computer Internetworking" (PDF). CORE. Vol. 3, no. 1. Computer History Museum. pp. 2–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-03. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
  2. Nielson, Don (December 2010). "History Corner: SRI "Internet Van" to Be on Display in Computer History Museum" (PDF). SRI Alumni Association Newsletter. SRI International. p. 6. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
  3. "In Memoriam: Virgil Donald "Don" Cone" (PDF). SRI Alumni Association Newsletter. SRI International. August 2011. pp. 11–12. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
  4. Laws, David. "Alpine Inn & Beer Garden". Silicon Valley Roots & Shoots. Archived from the original on 2013-09-19. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
  5. Gulker, Linda Hubbard (30 December 2019). "The saga of Alpine Inn aka Zott's over the years — InMenlo". InMenlo.com.
  6. Ogg, Erica (2007-11-08). "'Internet van' helped drive evolution of the Web". CNET . Retrieved 2013-03-31.
  7. "Timeline of innovations: Internetworking: The First Three-Network Transmission". SRI International. 17 November 1977. Retrieved 2012-07-01.