All Topics  
Stanford University Network

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Stanford University Network
 
 
  Topics Stanford University Network Topic Home

The Stanford University network was one of the four original ARPANET
ARPANET

The ARPANET developed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet....
 nodes. The original node was managed by Stanford Research Institute. As the TCP/IP protocols evolved, a TCP/IP network was built on the main campus, which initially connected the Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 computer science department, medical center, and department of electrical engineering. This network was called the "Stanford University Network" or SUN; this name continues today for Stanford's network.

The original network was built using a DEC PDP 11/05.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Stanford University Network'
Start a new discussion about 'Stanford University Network'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The Stanford University network was one of the four original ARPANET
ARPANET

The ARPANET developed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet....
 nodes. The original node was managed by Stanford Research Institute. As the TCP/IP protocols evolved, a TCP/IP network was built on the main campus, which initially connected the Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 computer science department, medical center, and department of electrical engineering. This network was called the "Stanford University Network" or SUN; this name continues today for Stanford's network.

The original network was built using a DEC PDP 11/05. The routers were upgraded to a Stanford design using circuit boards used by the Stanford SUN 3M workstation
SUN workstation

The original Stanford University Network SUN workstation was designed to be a low cost personal workstation for computer aided logic design work....
s. The CPU board was designed by Andy Bechtolsheim
Andy Bechtolsheim

Andreas von Bechtolsheim is a computer scientist who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy....
, a master's degree student at the time. It used a Motorola 68000
Motorola 68000

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit Complex instruction set computer microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor ....
 processor, included 256 Mb of ECC RAM and interfaced to other circuit boards using Multibus
Multibus

Multibus is a computer bus standard used in industrial systems. It was developed by Intel Corporation and was adopted as the IEEE 796 bus.The Multibus specification was important because it was a robust, well thought out industry standard with a relatively large form factor so you could design complex devices on it....
. The CPU board was matched with Ethernet
Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
 boards made by 3Com
3Com

3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Massachusetts....
, and Multibus serial boards in a Multibus enclosure. These routers were called "Blue Boxes" for the color of their case. The routers were built by a group of students, faculty and staff, including Len Bosack who was in charge of the computer science department's computers, and Sandy Lerner who was the Director of Computer Facilities for the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. All told there were about two dozen Blue Boxes scattered across campus. This original router design was to become the initial Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. is a multinational corporation with more than 66,000 employees and annual revenue of United States dollar39 billion as of 2008....
 router.

The original software was NOS, Network Operating System, written by William Yeager
William Yeager

William "Bill" Yeager is an United States engineer. He is best-known for being the inventor of a packet-switched, "Ships in the Night," multiple-Communications protocol router in 1981, during his 20 year tenure at Stanford University's Knowledge Systems Laboratory....
, a staff research engineer at Stanford's medical school. It was adapted to run on the Motorola 68000 processor. Distinguishing features of NOS were that it was written in C and that it was multi-tasking capable; this allowed additional network interfaces and additional features to be easily added as new tasks. NOS was the basis of Cisco's IOS
Cisco IOS

Cisco IOS is the software used on the vast majority of Cisco Systems routers and all current Cisco network switches. . IOS is a package of routing, switching, internetworking and telecommunications functions tightly integrated with a computer multitasking operating system....
 operating system. In 1987 Stanford licensed the router software and two computer boards to Cisco.

External links