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
Information is broken down into bite-sized pieces and sent to the other person. That’s it.
Instead of sending a box with a book, you send each page in a letter. Even if a few go missing, the receiver probably has enough information to keep the conversation going. Computers can break down the “book” into “pages” and reassemble them lighting-quick, so when there’s a problem, the receiver can say “resend packets 1123, 6590, and 10258” instead of “send the book again.”
Edit: internet speeds used to be fucking SLOW. Being able to resend only a few pages rather than the book was a HUGE advantage.
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