Routing TCP/IP, Volume I (CCIE Professional Development)

Routers

Routers have been known by several names. Back in ancient times when what is now the Internet was called the ARPANET, routers were called IMPs, for interface message processors.^[8] More recently, routers were called gateways; remnants of this nomenclature can still be found in terms such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP).^[9] In the Open System Interconnection (OSI) world, routers are known as Intermediate Systems (IS).

^[8] The parent of modern packet-switched networks was the AlohaNet, created at the University of Hawaii in the late 1960s by Norman Abramson. Because routers at that time were called IMPs, Dr. Abramson rather impishly named his router Menehune: a Hawaiian elf.

^[9] The term gateway ...