Interview with Robert Metcalfe
On the brink of what he calls his “sixth career, whatever that’s going to turn out to be,” Robert M. Metcalfe shares some of the earliest stories from the technology’s history. Regarded as the “Father of Ethernet,” Metcalfe is credited with co-inventing Ethernet while working at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973.
“I was the lucky guy who got to design a network connect for a computer on every desk,” Metcalfe recalls in an interview with Ethernet Alliance chair Peter Jones for The Voices of Ethernet oral history archive. Metcalfe not only looks back at the challenges overcome and milestones achieved in the technology’s journey so far (“one of the amazing things is how many places it has gone”) but also surveys how the Ethernet brand is continuing to evolve today.
“Ethernet has had an enormous positive impact on the world. The promise of Ethernet is a promise of abundant bandwidth, serendipitous applications, open standards, backward compatibility and fierce competition.”
Robert Metcalfe
Learn More about Robert M.
- Website
- Past Ethernet Alliance involvement
- Computer History Museum’s Oral History Sessions with Bob
- VIDEO | Interview with IEEE Computer magazine editor Charles Severance, April 2013
- VIDEO | “Ethernet Briefing” presentation from May 22, 1978
- For more information or to join the Higher Speed Networking subcommittee contact info@ethernetalliance.org
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