LO! ARPANET Double-Anniversary
October 31, 2012
/ Posted By: vandewille
There are not many things that remain currently relevant in communications technology that predate the founding of InterDigital, in 1972. One is ARPANET, the first computer-to-computer data transmission network, which first transmitted near this date in 1969 and which recently celebrated the 40th anniversay of its grand coming-out party at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
The idea that sharing data among devices might be valuable leads in a straight road to where the world - and InterDigital - is today. EDN's Suzanne Deffree has a great piece on the first ever computer to computer link: the scientists managed to transmit "LO" - the first two letters of the intended message, "login" - before the system crashed. Anyone who has had an important wireless call die in mid-conversation will sympathize...
Ars Technica had a tremendous piece last year on the technology's grand coming-out party in Washington in October of 1972, the same year InterDigital was founded. The first point on the conference agenda remains, today, what drives most technology, including us here at InterDigital: "This conference is not just another rehash of the technology of bits and bandwidths. It will deal with what all this is good for -- what the user problems and results are."
