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Roger Anthony Scantlebury(born August 1936) is a Britishcomputer scientistandInternet pioneerwho worked at theNational Physical Laboratory(NPL) and later atLogica.

Scantlebury led the pioneering work to implementpacket switchingand associatedcommunication protocolsat the NPL in the late 1960s. He proposed the use of the technology in theARPANET,the forerunner of theInternet,at the inauguralSymposium on Operating Systems Principlesin 1967. During the 1970s, he was a major figure in theInternational Network Working Groupthrough which he was an early contributor to concepts used in theTransmission Control Programwhich became part of theInternet protocol suite.

Early life

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Roger Scantlebury was born inEalingin 1936.

Career

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National Physical Laboratory

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Scantlebury worked at theNational Physical Laboratoryin south-west London, in collaboration with theNational Research Development Corporation(NRDC). His early work was on theAutomatic Computing EngineandEnglish Electric DEUCEcomputers.[1]

Following this he was tasked by Derek Barber to lead the implementation ofDonald Davies' pioneeringpacket switchingconcepts fordata communication.[2]Scantlebury and Keith Bartlett were the first to describe the termprotocolin a modern data-communications context in an April 1967 memorandum entitledA Protocol for Use in the NPL Data Communications Network.[3][4][5][6][7]In October 1967, he attended theSymposium on Operating Systems Principlesin the United States, where he gave an exposition of packet-switching, developed at NPL (and referenced the work of Paul Baran).[8][9][10]Also attending the conference wasLarry Roberts,from theARPA;this was the first time that Larry Roberts had heard of packet switching.[11][12]Scantlebury persuaded Roberts and other American engineers to incorporate the concept into the design for theARPANET.[13][14][15][16][17][18]

Subsequently he led the development of theNPL Data Communications Network,[4][19]publishing several research papers pioneering the development of packet-switched computer networks.[20][21]Elements of the network became operational in early 1969,[22][23]the first implementation of packet switching,[24][25]and the NPL network was the first to use high-speed links.[4][26]He was seconded to thePost Office Telecommunicationsin 1969, participating in a data communications study and supervising four data communications-related research contracts.[27]This research team developed thealternating bit protocol(ABP).[28][29]

Along with Davies and Barber, he was a major figure in theInternational Network Working Group(INWG) from 1972, initially chaired byVint Cerf.[30][31][32]He attended the INWG meeting in New York in June 1973 that shaped the early direction of international network protocols,[32][33]and was acknowledged byBob Kahnand Vint Cerf in their seminal 1974 paper oninternetworking,A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication.[34]He co-authored the standard agreed by INWG in 1975,Proposal for an international end to end protocol.[32][35]

Scantlebury later reported directly to Davies at the NPL.[36]As head of the data networks group within the Computer Science Division, he was responsible for the UK technical contribution to theEuropean Informatics Network,adatagramnetwork linkingCERN,the French research centreINRIAand the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.[1][37][38]

Later career

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Scantlebury joinedLogicain 1977 in their Communications Division,[1]where he worked on the CCITT (ITU-T)X.25protocol and with the formation of theEuronet,a pan-Europeanvirtual circuitnetwork using X.25.[39][40]He moved to the Finance Division in 1981.[1]

In the 2000s, he worked for Mercator Software, Integra SP and as a consultant.[41][42][36]Subsequently, he worked forKofax(now Tungsten Automation) and retired in 2020.

Personal life

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Scantlebury married Christine Appleby in 1958 in Middlesex; they had two sons in 1961 and 1966, and a daughter in 1963. He lives inEsher.

He was influential in persuading NPL to sponsor a gallery about "Technology of the Internet" atThe National Museum of Computing,which opened in 2009.[43]

Publications

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  • Davies, D. W.; Bartlett, K. A.; Scantlebury, R. A.; Wilkinson, P. T. (October 1967).A digital communications network for computers giving rapid response at remote terminals.ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles.
  • Wilkinson, P.T.; Scantlebury, R.A. (1968).The control functions in a local data network.IFIP Congress (2) 1968: 734-738.
  • Scantlebury, R. A.; Wilkinson, P.T.; Bartlett, K.A. (1968).The design of a message switching centre for a digital communication network.IFIP Congress (2) 1968: 723-727.
  • Scantlebury, R. A. (1969).A model for the local area of a data communication network objectives and hardware organization.Symposium on Problems in the Optimization of Data Communications Systems 1969: 183-204
  • Bartlett, Keith A.; Scantlebury, Roger A.; Wilkinson, Peter T. (1969).A note on reliable full-duplex transmission over half-duplex links.Commun. ACM 12(5): 260-261.
  • Scantlebury, R. A.; Wilkinson, P.T. (1971).The design of a switching system to allow remote access to computer services by other computers and terminal devices.Proceedings of the 2nd Symposium on Problems in the Optimization of Data Communications Systems. pp. 160–167.
  • Scantlebury, R. A.; Wilkinson, P.T. (1974).The National Physical Laboratory Data Communications Network.Proceedings of the 2nd ICCC 74. pp. 223–228.
  • Cerf, V.; McKenzie, A; Scantlebury, R; Zimmermann, H (1976). "Proposal for an international end to end protocol".ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review.6:63–89.doi:10.1145/1015828.1015832.S2CID36954091.

See also

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References

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  1. ^abcdCommunications Standards: State of the Art Report 14:3
  2. ^"Computer pioneer interactive family tree".2 February 2010.Retrieved5 June2024.
  3. ^Naughton, John (2015).A Brief History of the Future.Orion.ISBN978-1-4746-0277-8.
  4. ^abcCambell-Kelly, Martin (1987)."Data Communications at the National Physical Laboratory (1965-1975)".Annals of the History of Computing.9(3/4): 221–247.doi:10.1109/MAHC.1987.10023.S2CID8172150.
  5. ^Pelkey, James L."6.1 The Communications Subnet: BBN 1969".Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968–1988.As Kahn recalls:... Paul Baran's contributions... If you look at what he wrote, he was talking about switches that were low-cost electronics. The idea of putting powerful computers in these locations hadn't quite occurred to him as being cost effective. So the idea of computer switches was missing. The whole notion of protocols didn't exist at that time. And the idea of computer-to-computer communications was really a secondary concern.
  6. ^Kleinrock, L. (1978)."Principles and lessons in packet communications".Proceedings of the IEEE.66(11): 1320–1329.doi:10.1109/PROC.1978.11143.ISSN0018-9219.Paul Baran... focused on the routing procedures and on the survivability of distributed communication systems in a hostile environment, but did not concentrate on the need for resource sharing in its form as we now understand it; indeed, the concept of a software switch was not present in his work.
  7. ^Waldrop, M. Mitchell (2018).The Dream Machine.Stripe Press. p. 286.ISBN978-1-953953-36-0.Baran had put more emphasis on digital voice communications than on computer communications.
  8. ^Murray, Andrew (12 March 2007).The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the Online Environment.Routledge.ISBN9781135310745– via Google Books.
  9. ^Hafner, Katie; Lyon, Matthew (21 January 1998).Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet.Simon and Schuster.ISBN9780684832678– via Google Books.
  10. ^"On packet switching".Net History.Retrieved8 January2024.[Scantlebury said] We referenced Baran's paper in our 1967 Gatlinburg ACM paper. You will find it in the References. Therefore I am sure that we introduced Baran's work to Larry (and hence the BBN guys).
  11. ^Feder, Barnaby J. (4 June 2000)."Donald W. Davies, 75, Dies; Helped Refine Data Networks".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved9 November2019– via NYTimes.com.
  12. ^at 14:10, Richard Speed 29 Oct 2019."Are you coming to the party dressed as an IMP? ARPANET @ 50".www.theregister.co.uk.Retrieved9 November2019.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^Abbate, Janet(2000).Inventing the Internet.MIT Press.ISBN9780262511155– via Google Books.
  14. ^Naughton, John (2015).A Brief History of the Future: The origins of the Internet.Hachette.ISBN978-1474602778.they lacked one vital ingredient. Since none of them had heard of Paul Baran they had no serious idea of how to make the system work. And it took an English outfit to tell them.... Larry Roberts paper was the first public presentation of the ARPANET concept as conceived with the aid of Wesley Clark... Looking at it now, Roberts paper seems extraordinarily, well, vague.
  15. ^Waldrop, M. Mitchell (2018).The Dream Machine.Stripe Press. pp. 285–6.ISBN978-1-953953-36-0.Scantlebury and his companions from the NPL group were happy to sit up with Roberts all that night, sharing technical details and arguing over the finer points.
  16. ^"Oral-History:Donald Davies & Derek Barber".Retrieved13 April2016.the ARPA network is being implemented using existing telegraphic techniques simply because the type of network we describe does not exist. It appears that the ideas in the NPL paper at this moment are more advanced than any proposed in the USA
  17. ^Barber, Derek (Spring 1993)."The Origins of Packet Switching".The Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society(5).ISSN0958-7403.Retrieved6 September2017.Roger actually convinced Larry that what he was talking about was all wrong and that the way that NPL were proposing to do it was right. I've got some notes that say that first Larry was sceptical but several of the others there sided with Roger and eventually Larry was overwhelmed by the numbers.
  18. ^Needham, Roger M. (1 December 2002)."Donald Watts Davies, C.B.E. 7 June 1924 – 28 May 2000".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.48:87–96.doi:10.1098/rsbm.2002.0006.S2CID72835589.Larry Roberts presented a paper on early ideas for what was to become ARPAnet. This was based on a store-and-forward method for entire messages, but as a result of that meeting the NPL work helped to convince Roberts that packet switching was the way forward.
  19. ^technicshistory (2 June 2019)."ARPANET, Part 2: The Packet".Creatures of Thought.Retrieved21 June2024.
  20. ^A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade(PDF)(Report). Bolt, Beranek & Newman Inc. 1 April 1981. pp. 54–55.Archivedfrom the original on 1 December 2012.
  21. ^"Publications and Conference Papers - Data Communications at the National Physical Laboratory - History of Computing Collection: National Physical Laboratory Collection - Archives Hub".archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk.Retrieved21 January2024.
  22. ^Hempstead, C.; Worthington, W., eds. (2005).Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Technology.Routledge.pp. 573–5.ISBN978-1-135-45551-4.Retrieved15 August2015.
  23. ^Rayner, David; Barber, Derek; Scantlebury, Roger; Wilkinson, Peter (2001).NPL, Packet Switching and the Internet.Symposium of the Institution of Analysts & Programmers 2001. Archived fromthe originalon 7 August 2003.Retrieved13 June2024.The system first went 'live' early in 1969
  24. ^John S, Quarterman; Josiah C, Hoskins (1986)."Notable computer networks".Communications of the ACM.29(10): 932–971.doi:10.1145/6617.6618.S2CID25341056.The first packet-switching network was implemented at the National Physical Laboratories in the United Kingdom. It was quickly followed by the ARPANET in 1969.
  25. ^Haughney Dare-Bryan, Christine (22 June 2023).Computer Freaks(Podcast). Chapter Two: In the Air. Inc. Magazine. 35:55 minutes in.Leonard Kleinrock: Donald Davies... did make a single node packet switch before ARPA did
  26. ^"Alan Turing and the Ace computer".5 February 2010.Retrieved5 June2024.The NPL network ran at multi-megabit speeds in the late 1960s, faster than any network at the time.
  27. ^Smith, Ed; Miller, Chris; Norton, Jim (2017)."Packet Switching: The first steps on the road to the information society".National Physical Laboratory.
  28. ^Davies, Donald Watts (1979).Computer networks and their protocols.Internet Archive. Chichester, [Eng.]; New York: Wiley. pp.206.ISBN9780471997504.
  29. ^Naughton, John (24 September 2015).A Brief History of the Future.Orion.ISBN9781474602778– via Google Books.
  30. ^"Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Vinton Cerf".National Museum of American History.Smithsonian Institution.24 April 1990.Retrieved23 September2019.Roger Scantlebury was one of the major players. And Donald Davies who ran, at least he was superintendent of the information systems division or something like that. I absolutely had a lot of interaction with NPL at the time. They in fact came to the ICCC 72 and they had been coming to previous meetings of what is now called Datacomm. Its first incarnation was a long title having to do with the analysis and optimization of computer communication networks, or something like that. This started in late 1969, I think, was when the first meeting happened in Pine Hill, Georgia. I didn't go to that one, but I went to the next one that was at Stanford, I think. That's where I met Scantlebury, I believe, for the first time. Then I had a lot more interaction with him. I would come to the UK fairly regularly, partly for IFIP or INWG reasons
  31. ^Andrew L. Russell (30 July 2013)."OSI: The Internet That Wasn't".IEEE Spectrum.Vol. 50, no. 8.
  32. ^abcMcKenzie, Alexander (2011). "INWG and the Conception of the Internet: An Eyewitness Account".IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.33(1): 66–71.doi:10.1109/MAHC.2011.9.ISSN1934-1547.S2CID206443072.Perhaps the only historical difference that would have occurred if DARPA had switched to the INWG 96 protocol is that rather than Cerf and Kahn being routinely cited as "fathers of the Internet," maybe Cerf, Scantlebury, Zimmermann, and I would have been.
  33. ^Isaacson, Walter (2014).The innovators: how a group of hackers, geniuses, and geeks created the digital revolution.Internet Archive. New York: Simon & Schuster.ISBN978-1-4767-0869-0.
  34. ^Cerf, V.; Kahn, R. (1974)."A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication"(PDF).IEEE Transactions on Communications.22(5): 637–648.doi:10.1109/TCOM.1974.1092259.ISSN1558-0857.The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
  35. ^Cerf, V.; McKenzie, A; Scantlebury, R; Zimmermann, H (1976). "Proposal for an international end to end protocol".ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review.6:63–89.doi:10.1145/1015828.1015832.S2CID36954091.
  36. ^ab"IET/BCS talk: The Internet - Where it came from & where it is going".talks.cam.ac.uk.15 November 2007.Retrieved21 June2024.
  37. ^A, BarberD L. (1 July 1975)."Cost project 11".ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review.5(3): 12–15.doi:10.1145/1015667.1015669.S2CID28994436.
  38. ^"EIN (European Informatics Network)".Computer History Museum.Retrieved3 February2020.
  39. ^Dunning, A.J. (31 December 1977). "Origins, development and future of the Euronet".Program.11(4). Emeraldinsight.com: 145–155.doi:10.1108/eb046759.
  40. ^Kerssens, Niels (13 December 2019)."Rethinking legacies in internet history: Euronet, lost (inter)networks, EU politics".Internet Histories.4:32–48.doi:10.1080/24701475.2019.1701919.ISSN2470-1475.
  41. ^Scantlebury, Roger (2001).A Brief History of the NPL Network.Symposium of the Institution of Analysts & Programmers 2001. Archived fromthe originalon 7 August 2003.Retrieved13 June2024.
  42. ^Hempstead, C.; Worthington, W., eds. (2005).Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Technology.Vol. 1, A–L. Routledge. pp. xxx.ISBN9781135455514.It was a seminal meeting
  43. ^"Technology of the Internet".The National Museum of Computing.Retrieved3 October2017.

Further reading

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