Ethernet Prototype Circuit Board
- Description
- This Ethernet board is a prototype developed by Robert Metcalf in 1973 while at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Metcalf based his idea for the Ethernet on the ALOHAnet, a packet-switching wireless radio network developed by Norman Abramson, Frank Kuo, and Richard Binder at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. The ALOHAnet sent computer data communication between the university's campuses on several islands. Metcalf improved upon ALOHAnet's design and created the "Alto ALOHA Network," a network of computers hard-wired together by cables that he soon called the Ethernet. In 1985, the Ethernet became the
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) standard for connecting personal computers via a Local Area Network (LAN). Today, LANs often use WiFi, or Wireless Fidelity, a way of connecting computers without wires.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- circuit board
- Date made
- 1973
- developer
- Metcalf, Robert
- maker
- Xerox Corporation
- Physical Description
- plastic (overall material)
- metal (overall material)
- rubber (overall material)
- Place Made
- United States: California, Palo Alto
- ID Number
- 1992.0566.01
- catalog number
- 1992.0566.01
- accession number
- 1992.0566
- subject
- Computers & Business Machines
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Computers
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- Credit Line
- Xerox PARC
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