12-11-2020, 07:49 PM
Wireless networking started in Hawaii back in 1971. It was a time before satellite communications, when TV programs were still flown in from the mainland on tape for broadcast in Hawaii. Norman Abramson developed a system that linked Hawaii's schools on the outer islands. In the end he connected the world:
Professor Abramson’s project at the University of Hawaii was originally designed to transmit data to schools on the far-flung Hawaiian islands by means of a radio channel. But the solution he and his group devised in the late 1960s and early ’70s would prove widely applicable; some of their technology is still in use in today’s smartphones, satellites and home WiFi networks.
“It was an incredibly audacious idea, real out-of-the box engineering,” said Vinton Cerf, a computer scientist at Google and the co-author, with Robert Kahn, of the technical standards for linking computer networks on the internet.
The wireless network in Hawaii, which began operating in 1971, was called ALOHAnet, embracing the Hawaiian salutation for greeting or parting. It was a smaller, wireless version of the better known ARPAnet, the precursor to the internet, which allowed researchers at universities to share a network and send messages over landlines. The ARPAnet was led by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also funded the ALOHAnet.
“The early wireless work in Hawaii is vastly underappreciated,” said Marc Weber, an internet historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. “Every modern form of wireless data networking, from WiFi to your cellphone, goes back to the ALOHAnet.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/techn...-dead.html
Professor Abramson’s project at the University of Hawaii was originally designed to transmit data to schools on the far-flung Hawaiian islands by means of a radio channel. But the solution he and his group devised in the late 1960s and early ’70s would prove widely applicable; some of their technology is still in use in today’s smartphones, satellites and home WiFi networks.
“It was an incredibly audacious idea, real out-of-the box engineering,” said Vinton Cerf, a computer scientist at Google and the co-author, with Robert Kahn, of the technical standards for linking computer networks on the internet.
The wireless network in Hawaii, which began operating in 1971, was called ALOHAnet, embracing the Hawaiian salutation for greeting or parting. It was a smaller, wireless version of the better known ARPAnet, the precursor to the internet, which allowed researchers at universities to share a network and send messages over landlines. The ARPAnet was led by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also funded the ALOHAnet.
“The early wireless work in Hawaii is vastly underappreciated,” said Marc Weber, an internet historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. “Every modern form of wireless data networking, from WiFi to your cellphone, goes back to the ALOHAnet.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/techn...-dead.html
