What Exactly Is “Ethernet”?
With all this evolution, what really was, or is, “Ethernet”?
In 2006, Metcalfe said: “Ethernet is [now] a business model.” Metcalfe probably rightfully meant that Ethernet is now almost a brand-name of sorts, and bears almost no resemblance to what it originally was.
But what did Metcalfe have to say about it in 1973? On May 22 of that same year, he wrote a world-changing E-mail within Xerox, Palo Alto, California—an E-mail which set the Ethernet ball rolling.
Did we just say “E-mail”? That’s obviously not accurate. Because Metcalfe was going to enable E-mail soon, but till then “E-mail” (at least as we know it today) did not exist. So we just dodged a trick question.
It is more accurate to say something like ...
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