- In full:
- Lawrence Gilman Roberts
- Born:
- December 21, 1937, Westport, Connecticut, U.S.
- Died:
- December 26, 2018, Redwood City, California (aged 81)
- Founder:
- Anagran Inc.
- Caspian Networks
- Telenet
- Awards And Honors:
- Draper Prize (2001)
Lawrence Roberts
-
Who was Lawrence Roberts?
Lawrence Roberts (1937ā2018) was an American computer scientist who oversaw the creation of the ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. He earned degrees from MIT and worked at MITās Lincoln Laboratory, studying communications networks.
Roberts led the ARPANET project after being asked to direct it in 1966. At a meeting in 1967, he presented the network's technical specifications. In 1969, he became director of the Information Processing Techniques Office at ARPA. Roberts wrote one of the first e-mail programs in 1971, and in 1973, he established Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching.
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What field did Lawrence Roberts work in?
Lawrence Roberts was an American computer scientist who supervised the construction of the ARPANET, an experimental computer network and a precursor to the Internet. In 1965, Roberts connected a computer at Lincoln Laboratory to a mainframe computer at the System Development Corporation in California. In 1966, he was asked to direct the ARPANET project. In 1973, he founded Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching.
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What major computer network did Lawrence Roberts help create?
Lawrence Roberts played a crucial role in the creation of ARPANET, an experimental computer network that served as a precursor to the Internet. Tasked by ARPA (later DARPA) in 1965, Roberts connected a computer at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory to one in Santa Monica, California. In 1966, he was asked to direct the ARPANET project, and he presented the network's technical specifications in 1967. In 1969, the first message was sent over ARPANET between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute. ARPANET was designed to link computers at Pentagon-funded research institutions via telephone lines.
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How did Lawrence Roberts contribute to the development of the internet?
Lawrence Roberts, an American computer scientist, played a crucial role in the development of the ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. In 1966, he was persuaded to direct the ARPANET project. At a meeting in 1967, he presented the technical specifications. After the meeting, Roberts modified the ARPANET plan to incorporate smaller computers called interface message processors (IMPs) to handle the networking. In 1971, he also wrote one of the first e-mail programs, RD, which allowed users to save, delete, and organize their messages. In 1973, Roberts founded Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching. He adopted the term 'packet switching' from Donald Davies for ARPANET.
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What specific ideas or technologies did Roberts introduce to computer networking?
Lawrence Roberts was instrumental in the development of computer networking through his work on the ARPANET. After learning about packet switching from Donald Davies, Roberts adopted this technology for the ARPANET. In 1967, he presented the technical specifications for the ARPANET. Roberts modified the ARPANET plan to incorporate interface message processors (IMPs), as suggested by Wesley Clark. In 1971, Roberts also wrote one of the first e-mail programs, RD, which allowed users to organize their messages. In 1973, he founded Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching, which also developed the popular networking protocol X.25.
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How has Lawrence Robertsās work influenced modern communication technology?
Lawrence Roberts, an American computer scientist, significantly shaped modern communication technology through his work on the ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. In 1966, Roberts was asked to direct the ARPANET project. At an ARPANET meeting in April 1967, Roberts presented the technical specifications for the network. Later, Roberts modified the ARPANET plan to incorporate smaller computers called interface message processors (IMPs). In 1971, he also wrote one of the first e-mail programs, RD, allowing users to organize their messages. In 1973, he founded Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching, which led to the development of X.25, a popular networking protocol.
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Lawrence Roberts (born December 21, 1937, Westport, Connecticut, U.S.ādied December 26, 2018, Redwood City, California) was an American computer scientist who supervised the construction of the ARPANET, a computer network that was a precursor to the Internet.
Roberts received bachelorās (1959), masterās (1960), and doctoral (1963) degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. He then worked at MITās Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he studied communications networks. In February 1965 Roberts received a contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which later became the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to develop an experimental computer network. In October of that year, Roberts succeeded in connecting a computer at Lincoln Laboratory to a mainframe computer at the System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, California.
About that time, ARPA, which was funding computer research at several American universities, felt that research would be more efficient if the various institutions could share computer resources over an ARPA-funded network, ARPANET. In 1966 Roberts was asked several times to become director of the ARPANET. He refused but was eventually persuaded to lead the project. At an ARPANET meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in April 1967, Roberts presented the technical specifications for the network. However, after the meeting, computer scientist Wesley Clark persuaded Roberts that the actual networking should be handled by smaller computers called interface message processors (IMPs) rather than the large mainframes that would be the nodes of ARPANET. Roberts modified the ARPANET plan to incorporate Clarkās suggestion. On October 29, 1969, American computer scientist Leonard Kleinrock and his student Charley Kline sent the first message over ARPANET from an IMP and computer at the University of California, Los Angeles, to an IMP and computer at Stanford Research Institute (later SRI International) in Menlo Park, California. By the end of 1969, the originally planned four-node ARPANET was complete.
In 1969 Roberts became director of the Information Processing Techniques Office at ARPA. In 1971 he wrote one of the first e-mail programs, RD, which for the first time allowed users to save, delete, and organize their messages. In 1973 he founded Telenet, the first computer networking company to use packet switching. The company also developed X.25, which became one of the most popular networking protocols. Telenet was sold to GTE Corporation in 1979, and Roberts left the company in 1980.
In 1983 Roberts became chairman and chief executive officer of NetExpress, a company that produced networking equipment using the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) protocol. In 1993 he became president of ATM Systems. However, ATM was eventually supplanted by networking devices using Internet Protocol (IP), and he left ATM Systems in 1998.
In 1999 Roberts founded Caspian Networks, which developed routers that worked not on individual packets but on the overall type of a message to prioritize it accordingly. He left Caspian Networks in 2004 and that same year founded Anagran Inc., which also developed IP routers. He received the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering in 2001.