May 17-20, 2024 featured 6 IEEE engineering milestones and a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Internet at various locations in Silicon Valley.
ALOHAnet satellite dish on the roof of Holmes Hall with some of its founders. (Photo courtesy: Ram Chandran)
Hundreds of speakers, panelists and participants gathered virtually to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ALOHAnet with a symposium commemorating the pioneering system’s impact on technology worldwide. Born out of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Engineering in June 1971, the ALOHAnet protocol is the basis of all wireless communications including mobile, satellite, cellular and
WiFi.
“ALOHAnet and the ALOHA protocols all developed here absolutely changed the world enabling technologies for wireless communication and the internet,”
UH President
David Lassner said.
Norman Abramson, Pioneer Behind Wireless Networks, Dies at 88
His ALOHAnet, designed a half-century ago in Hawaii, was a precursor to the technology used in today’s smartphones and home WiFi networks.
Norman Abramson in the mid-1970s, when he headed a group that developed the ALOHAnet, an early wireless data network.Credit.via Rose de Heer
Dec. 11, 2020
Norman Abramson, the leader of a group of scientists and engineers who pioneered the development of wireless computer networks, died on Dec. 1 at his home in San Francisco. He was 88.
The cause was skin cancer that had metastasized to his lungs, his son, Mark, said.