Ethernet History

IEEE Milestone Award for Xerox PARC Ethernet

On May 17, 2024 IEEE awarded Xerox PARC (now part of SRI) 3 Milestone Awards for Ethernet (1973), Alto (1973) and the Laser Printer (1974). Bob Metcalfe (Ethernet) John Shoch (Alto) and Ron Rider (Laser Printer) accepted the awards on behalf of the many people involved in the inventions.

Vint Cerf and Bob Metcalfe were keynote speakers and described what it was like in the mid 1970's and the collaboration between the Stanford and Xerox PARC teams.

SRI PARC Forum

May 17, 2024: Bob Metcalfe (Ethernet) Ron Rider (Laser Printer) John Shoch (Alto)

 

And what did these people look like way back then?

May 1993: John Shoch, Bob Metcalfe, Ron Crane, David Boggs

1972: Bob Metcalfe and Ron Rider

 

Ethernet @ 50!

CHM Event

Bob Metcalfe Receives Turing Award

NYT: Bob Metcalfe Receives Turing award

Xerox PARC's Engineers on how they Invented the Future -- and how Xerox Lost It

IEEE Spectrum June 4, 2022

Ethernet's Emergence from Xerox PARC -- April 13, 2022 IEEE Webinar

Ethernet's Emergence from Xerox PARC

Time	Speaker/Panelist(s)	Description
0:00:00	Tom Coughlin	Introduction to the IEEE Santa Clara Valley (SCV) Technology History Committee
0:01:44	Geoff Thompson	Introduction of panelists;  Agenda
0:18:21	Bob Metcalfe	Xerox PARC Ethernet:  Invention, key technologies and contributions
0:27:05	David Liddle	Initial Xerox Ethernet products;  Managing expectations for Ethernet in corporate Xerox
0:45:32	Gordon Bell	DEC VAX networking strategy;  Ethernet as "unifying key to 5th generation" computers
1:05:41	Bob Metcalfe	Consulting for DEC's interconnect strategy task force;  Petitioning Xerox to partner on Ethernet
1:08:47	David Liddle	Managing Ethernet's emergence from Xerox;  Insisting on compliance to Ethernet license
1:12:08	Bob Metcalfe	Introducing Intel to Ethernet;  catalyst to start 3Com
1:13:57	Liddle, Shoch, Metcalfe	Interactions with IBM over Ethernet
1:19:10	David Liddle	Decision making culture at IBM & Xerox;  Xerox relinquishes trademark protection for Ethernet
1:22:56	Dave Redell, Rich Seifert	Collaboration between DEC, Intel, and Xerox (DIX) on the 10-mbps Ethernet "Blue Book" spec
1:31:37	Rich Seifert	Crafting a robust physical layer spec;  New DC-voltage-level detection of collisions on cable
1:37:21	Roy Ogus	Xerox SDD 3 and 10-mbps Ethernet/XeroxWire adapters for D0 and Dandelion workstations
1:43:04	Robert Garner	Show & tell: Tat Lam's Ethernet transceiver, Alto & Dandelion/Star workstations & Ethernet adapters
1:59:47	Bob Belleville	From minis to Macintosh's AppleTalk;  Intel 8086 PC prototype in Xerox SDD (Cub)
2:06:27	Thompson, Tom Gardner	Q&A session:
2:06:41	Rich Seifert	Did DEC & Intel prototype 10-mbps Ethernet adapters during DIX spec timeframe?
2:10:10	Hal Murray, Shoch, Siefert	Xerox's PUP & XNS internet protocols vs. TCP/IP;  Xerox's Ethernet infrastructure;  48b addresses
2:22:14	Geoff Thompson	Was Ethernet's progression from a few megabits/sec to today's gigabits/sec anticipated?
2:24:19	Thompson & Seifert	Why aren't Ethernet/Metcalfe & Boggs likened to Telegraph/Morse and Telephone/Bell?
2:25:56	Geoff Thompson	Thanks and acknowledgments!

 

Tat Lam Passes Away

Unsung Heroes

David Boggs Passes Away

NYT Obituary

Metcalfe: Remembering Dave Boggs

Xerox Ethernet Pioneers in 2019

L to R: (Larry Masinter,) (Paul McJones,) Hal Murray, Roy Ogus, Bill Lynch, (Shannon McElyea,) Robert Garner, John Shoch, Geoff Thompson

The 3Com Story

The 3Com Story website

In Memory of Ron Crane

Ron Crane

Metcalfe's Law After 40 Years of Ethernet

 

Ethernet @ 40! May 23, 2013

40 Years Ago

CHM: Happy 40th Birthday, Ethernet!

 

 

L to R: Dan Pitt, Norm Abramson, Dave House, Bill Hawe, Yogen Dalal, xxx, Judy Estrin, Geoff Thompson, Pat Thaler, Ron Crane, Radia Perlman, Bob Metcalfe, Andy Bechtolsheim, David Boggs.

Ethernet Lobby at Stanford Huang Center

The Ethernet Lobby at the Stanford School of Engineering's new Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center is a gift from many Stanford faculty and students who contributed to the invention, productization, standardization and commercialization of Ethernet. Those making this gift played key roles in Ethernet's success. Ethernet was invented in 1973 at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center by Bob Metcalfe (also at that time on the faculty at Stanford and one of my PhD thesis advisors) and David Boggs (also at that time a fellow graduate student at Stanford.)

Ethernet Lobby

 

Donor Plaque

 

Len Shustek, John Shoch, Robert Garner, Yogen Dalal, Ron Crane

 

Roy Ogus, John Wakerly, David Liddle, Robert Garner, Ron Crane

Computer History Museum 2008 Fellows Award

Bob Metcalfe receives this award for fundamental contributions in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet.

2008 Fellows

 

David Boggs, Ron Crane and Bob Metcalfe at the event.

 

Ethernet History Timeline

First 30 Years Timeline

The interactive Ethernet history timeline is based on the Ethernet poster Mayfield Fund commissioned for the 25th anniversary at Vortex 1998.

Omissions and errors will be rectified, and seminal events since then will be added to the timeline.

Seminal Publications

Important papers, publications and books are listed with links on the left column to enable authors to comment through this post about interesting aspects and recollections of their work.  If necessary a dedicated post can easily be created.

An interesting observation is that most of the seminal work around Ethernet was done at Xerox. The major influence from outside produced the CAT5 wiring and star topology for ease of installation and maintenance, and it is now the most common configuration for wired Ethernet.

Ethernet @ 30, May 22, 2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Xerox PARC

 

 

 David Boggs and Bob Metcalfe

 

 Ed McCreight, Gordon Bell and David Liddle

 

 John Shoch and David Boggs

 

 Pitts Jarvis, Bob Garner and Ron Crane

 

Bob Printis and David Liddle

 

Photographs courtesy of PARC.  Photographer is Deanna Horvath

25th Anniversary at Vortex 1998

John Markoff, NYT, reports

 

Ethernet @ 20 in 1993

John Shoch, Bob Metcalfe, Ron Crane, David Boggs

DEC-Intel-(3Com)-Xerox and IEEE 802.3

After leaving Xerox to start 3Com, Bob Metcalfe  contacted Gordon Bell (DEC), and then persuaded David Liddle (Xerox) and Phil Kaufman (Intel) to bring their respective organizations to work together to create a new standard that has lasted over 25 years and has gone from local area nertworks, to wireless networks to high speed wide area networks.  The engineering groups at DEC, Intel and Xerox brought their respective skills in hardware, semi-conductors and distributed computing to ensure that this standard would last for a long time.  David Redell (Xerox), Rich Seifert (DEC) and Rob Ryan (Intel) created Version 1.0 of the Ethernet Specification on September 30, 1980, and Bob Printis (Xerox) represented Ethernet to the IEEE standards body to create IEEE 802.3 .