I am starting a class for school. It’s a business computer networking course and we’re focusing on history of the internet (ARPANet, etc) right now. Our textbook keeps taking about packet-switching but the explanations are never fleshed out enough. It’s hidden behind CS vocabulary I don’t understand. Any help?
In: Technology
A fun annecdote about circuit (telephone-like) and packet (internet-like) switching from the early days. At one of the early demos of packet switching, people from Bell Labs, the telephone people, who had spent decades perfecting and optimizing circuit switching, got to see the new packet-switch equipment (for internet, they didn’t do phoen calls on the internet then).
And they were absolutely delighted to see that during the demo, the packet switch equipment failed. “See!” they cackled, “this new thing is bad, and our stuff that we know better is awesome, and we shouldn’t waste any time on that internet thing”.
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