Fuzzball routers were the first modern routers on the Internet. [1] They were DEC PDP-11 computers (usually LSI-11 personal workstations) loaded with the Fuzzball software written by David L. Mills (of the University of Delaware). [2] [3] The name "Fuzzball" was the colloquialism for Mills's routing software. The software evolved from the Distributed Computer Network (DCN) that started at the University of Maryland in 1973. [3] [4] It acquired the nickname sometime after it was rewritten in 1977. [3]
Six Fuzzball routers provided the routing backbone of the first 56 kbit/s NSFNET, [5] [6] allowing the testing of many of the Internet's first protocols. [7] It allowed the development of the first TCP/IP routing protocols, [8] and the Network Time Protocol. [9] They were the first routers to implement key refinements to TCP/IP such as variable-length subnet masks. [10]
Fuzzball routers were the first modern routers on the Internet. [1] They were DEC PDP-11 computers (usually LSI-11 personal workstations) loaded with the Fuzzball software written by David L. Mills (of the University of Delaware). [2] [3] The name "Fuzzball" was the colloquialism for Mills's routing software. The software evolved from the Distributed Computer Network (DCN) that started at the University of Maryland in 1973. [3] [4] It acquired the nickname sometime after it was rewritten in 1977. [3]
Six Fuzzball routers provided the routing backbone of the first 56 kbit/s NSFNET, [5] [6] allowing the testing of many of the Internet's first protocols. [7] It allowed the development of the first TCP/IP routing protocols, [8] and the Network Time Protocol. [9] They were the first routers to implement key refinements to TCP/IP such as variable-length subnet masks. [10]