Ethernet co-inventor David Boggs dies at 71

Pioneering Xerox PARC computer researcher David Boggs has died at 71, wireless connections. 

The ALOHAnet, tapping into Boggs’ passion for HAM radio. “He was the perfect partner for me,” Metcalfe told the NYT. “I was more of a concept artist, and he was a build-the-hardware-in-the-back-room engineer.”

At this point, a networking system called Arpanet already existed, but was designed for connections over longer distances. Ethernet beat out competing technologies for near-proximity connections thanks to its clever packet technology. That allowed data to be sent over wires or wirelessly, and it would continue to work even if some packets were lost. 

Metcalfe eventually founded the Ethernet networking giant 3Com, while Boggs stayed at PARC as a researcher. He later moved to mini-computer giant DEC, then started an Ethernet company called LAN Media.

Ethernet became the standard protocol for wired devices in the ’80s and is the foundational tech used for WiFi that first proliferated in the 1990s. Nearly 50 years later, it has never been replaced and is ubiquitous in nearly all digital devices. So why did it survive and thrive? “Seems Ethernet does not work in theory, only in practice,” Boggs once said, Metcalfe told the NYT.