British Broadcasting CorporationHome

Accessibility links

Skip to content
Skip to local navigation
Skip to bbc.co.uk navigation
Skip to bbc.co.uk search
Accessibility Help

BBC News Updated every minute of every day

One-Minute World News

News Front Page

Africa

Americas

Europe

UK

Business

Health

Science & Environment

Also in the news

-----------------

Video and Audio

-----------------

Country Profiles

Special Reports

Related BBC sites

Page last updated at 23:59 GMT, Thursday, 4 February 2010

'Packet switching' system's first computer network

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Advertisement

Roger Scantlebury demonstrates the "packet switching" system that underpins how data moves around the internet.

He was a member of the National Physical Laboratory team that ran a computer network at multimegabit speeds in the late 1960s.

Mr Scantlebury presented the ideas about "packet switching" to the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium on Operating System Principles in the US and they were picked up by the creators of the nascent Arpanet.

The system enables more than one computer to share data across a network and underpins the way that the modern internet operates.

SEE ALSO

Modern internet inventor's memory(00.45)
Computer that cracked Nazi code(02.46)
First computer's war victories(03.57)
How to crack Nazi coded messages(00.57)
UK's 'oldest' computer rebuilt(01.55)
Old computers making music(01.16)
Classic video game Elite turns 25(03.02)
Oldest TV found in London home(02.51)
Oldest TV ready for switchover(01.46)

Story Tools

Bookmark with:

What are these?

E-mail this to a friend

MOST POPULAR VIDEO/AUDIO

'People were covered in dust'

Editor's Choice

Improvements to the BBC News Website

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

BBC navigation

BBC links

- Parental Guidance

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.