We should not spend our time inventing 60 other technologies. We should work on ATM instead. It is clearly the technology for the next generation. The Internet is a community, and ATM is the technology that will support that community.
Predictor: Roberts, Lawrence G.
Prediction, in context:A 1994 Newsbytes article carried an interview with Internet pioneer Larry Roberts in a discussion of economical delivery of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and a “rate-based flow control” scheme. The interview took place in Boston, at the 25th anniversary of the ARPANET. Roberts said: ”The remaining issue at hand is to be able to build an ATM switch that will be economically viable in the commercial world … After we proved that packet switching would work, people finally accepted it. But the transition wasn’t easy. And some people continued to keep ‘voice’ as a separate thing. They said, ‘Oh, no, voice will never be done through packet switching.’ But now voice, too, is goint to switch over. Because packet switching through ATM is better for voice as well as video and data … We should not spend our time inventing 60 other technologies. We should work on ATM instead. It is clearly the technology for the next generation. The Internet is a community, and ATM is the technology that will support that community.”
Biography:Lawrence G. (Larry) Roberts, met and was inspired by J.C.R. Licklider in 1964 to work on building a wide-area communications network. In 1965, the director of the IPTO contracted Roberts to develop a network. Thomas Marill programmed the network. In1966, Roberts and Marill published what amounted to an ARPANET plan Ð it was titled “Toward a Cooperative Network of Shared Computers.” Roberts joined ARPA in 1966 as IPTO chief scientist. He led 1967 design discussions at an ARPA meeting in Michigan at which the standards for transmission of characters, and identification and authentication of users were first described. In 1967, he presented a paper that summarized the complete ARPANET plan at an ACM symposium in Tennessee. In 1968, he wrote and completed a program plan titled “Resource Sharing Computer Networks” which was approved June 21, and work on ARPANET began. In 1969, he became director of IPTO. He wrote the first e-mail management program to list, selectively read, file, forward and respond to messages in 1972. In 1973, he became CEO of Telenet, the first packet-switching network carrier. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: September 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: Newsbytes
Title, headline, chapter name: ATM Forum’s Controversial ‘Flow Control’ Vote
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=ba21934d061eddcf4d56622267ce4583... or http://Post-NewsweekBusinessInformation.com
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Scott, Carrie M.