Robert Metcalfe

Robert Metcalfe

Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946 in Brooklyn , New York ) is an American electrical engineer and is considered the inventor of the Ethernet .

Life

Metcalfe earned two bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and industrial management from MIT . In his doctoral thesis at Harvard University , he dealt with the topic of packet switching in computer networks .

During his doctoral thesis he worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center ( Xerox PARC ) and was entrusted with the task of networking the company computers. On the basis of the first radio-based computer network ALOHAnet , he and David Boggs developed a modified, wired network technology, the Ethernet , in 1973 . In 1979 he left Xerox to start his own company 3Com , a manufacturer of components for computer networks. He successfully convinced DEC , Intel and Xerox to work with him to make Ethernet the standard. Competing technologies at the time were proprietary systemsToken Ring and ARCNET , both of which were soon drowned in a veritable deluge of Ethernet products. 3Com grew into a large company.

In 1980 Metcalfe received the Grace Murray Hopper Award in recognition of his achievements in the development of local computer networks , in particular the development of Ethernet. In 1990 Metcalfe withdrew from 3Com. He was the editor of InfoWorld magazine for ten years . In 1995 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

See also

• Metcalfe's law

Web links

Commons : Robert Metcalfe  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ s. graphic