Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Kudos to two heroes!
The New York Times today is running an article on Vint Cert and Robert Kahn, congratulating them on being the latest well-deserving recipients of the A. M. Turing Award (which, according to the New York Times is "widely considered to be the computing field's equivalent of the Nobel Prize"--those computer folk hold nothing back when it comes to designing awards!).
Colin and I first came across both men in Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon's book, Where Wizards Stay Up Late--still one of the all-time best internet histories available--and have been enormous fans of their vision and contributions to everyday life ever since.
Cert and Kahn are repsonsible for creating "the structure for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, a set of communications standards that enable different computer networks to share information, giving the Internet its power and reach" in 1973. Interestingly enough, they developed the protocol using pencil and paper....
