Internet creator lawrence roberts dies at 81

Surely many of us wonder now what this world would be without the Internet, but it was not always so. History is marketed for key moments, in which a person with a mentality ahead of his time, anticipates everyone to invent what today is known as the network of networks, the Internet. Last December 26 we lost this pioneer who changed the world of data transmission, Larry Roberts, creator of ARPanet, died at the age of 81.

The concept of network that revolutionized the world

Larry Roberts was one of the first architects to create the first data exchange network, ARPAnet, but from a young age he pointed out ways and was a brilliant mind throughout his life.

Since his youth he was closely related to the world of communication and networks. At an early age he already built a tesla coil and designed a telephone network built from transistors for his parents' camp. Larry Roberts graduated in electrical engineering in 1959 from MIT, the birthplace of the best scientists in history to date.

He began working in the MIT lab until one day an article talking about JCR Licklider's "Intergalactic Networks" sparked his interest and Roberts developed his research on packet exchange on computer networks. Until in 1967 he was recruited by Robert Tylor for the Advanced Projects Research Agency (ARPA), where he became the program manager for ARPANET.

Thanks to Wesley A. Clark's suggestions to use dedicated computers to establish a data network, Roberts assembled a team consisting of, among others, Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf to create the first ARPANET packet-switched network, which was the mother of today's Internet. This first network was used by the United States Department of Defense, as a means of communication between the different academic and state institutions. This was the main trunk for the implementation in 1990 of the TCP / IP protocol, currently used for the Internet.

Founder of Telenet, the first data operator

After this, Roberts left ARPA leaving Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in charge of its development, and this is why they are surely the two best-known characters related to the creation of the Internet. It was then, when he created his own company Telenet, where he commercialized packet switching technology. It was, so to speak, the first data operator in history, developing the X25 protocol on which the European EUNet network would be based.

In 1983 he would join DHL Corporation, then NetExprees, to later be president and director of the Caspian Networks company that operated until 2006. Finally, Roberts founded the company Anagram Inc. Dedicated to the management of the IP protocol to provide improvements in the service of Internet.

In 2002 he received the first Prince of Asturias for the creation of the network that gave way to the Internet, the network of networks, which in these years has changed the world and our way of life. Without a doubt, a fundamental character in this part of history, which we have been fortunate to experience.

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