cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
1001
Views
8
Helpful
4
Replies

Trivia Tuesday: Wireless Surfing in Hawaii

Paul Zimmerman
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hey brah, it's common knowledge that Hawaii's got the sickest waves for shredding. While the history of the sport is ancient and began in Polynesia, the modern version was popularized by Duke Kahanamoku, who was surfing in Hawaii back at the turn of the 20th century. While there is debate on the world's best surf spots, Pipeline on Oahu is certainly a top destination. But what is totally gnarly is that the first wireless packet network, ALOHAnet, was deployed by the University of Hawaii way back in 1971! Dude, that's like, over 50 years ago!

That's right, the ALOHAnet (which stood for Additive Links On-line Hawaii Area Network) went online in June of 1971. This radio-based packet network was set up by the University of Hawaii to connect computing facilities across the Hawaiian islands. Not only was this network the first to send packets over radio frequencies, but it also introduced the concept of random-access protocols and the retranmission of packets that were damaged or lost. ALOHAnet provided the founding principles for future technologies like Ethernet and WiFi.

When you're surfing the internet on your mobile devices, you can be stoked for the foundation that ALOHAnet has provided!

Wireless computing has certainly changed the way we live. How has it most impacted you or your work?

4 Replies 4

davidn#
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Fun fact: The name ALOHAnet comes from the Hawaiian word "aloha," which means both "hello" and "goodbye," and was chosen to reflect the system's ability to send and receive data from multiple locations.

Alex Stevenson
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Another fun fact: I founded a Spanish-only tech-startup called Nova. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere.

Spoiler: "No va" means "No go" in Spanish

I will admit, I did lol a little bit... tempted to add a "ba dum tss" meme to this reply!

@Sean Dahlberg I almost closed it with "I'll just let myself out" lol

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: