Louis Pouzin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Louis Pouzin
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Louis Pouzin en 2013.
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| Born | 20 April 1931  Chantenay-Saint-Imbert |
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Louis Pouzin (born April 20, 1931) is a French computer scientist and a true Internet pioneer. He helped create some of the core ideas that make the internet work today. In the early 1970s, he led a project in France called CYCLADES. This project developed a new way for computers to talk to each other.
Pouzin's team was the first to use something called the end-to-end principle in a large computer network. This idea is super important for how the Internet sends information. They also used a "datagram" model, which is like sending small, independent postcards of data. His work, along with his colleagues Hubert Zimmerman and Gérard Le Lann, greatly influenced the design of TCP/IP. This is the main set of rules that the internet uses to communicate.
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Biography
Louis Pouzin was born in Chantenay-Saint-Imbert, France, on April 20, 1931. He studied at the famous École Polytechnique from 1950 to 1952.
Early Computer Work
Pouzin worked on a system called Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) at MIT in the United States. Around 1963–1964, he wrote a program for it called RUNCOM. This program allowed computers to run a series of commands from a file. It was an early version of what we now call a command-line interface or a shell script.
Pouzin also came up with the term shell in 1964 or 1965. He used it to describe a program that lets you give commands to a computer. This "shell" was separate from the computer's main brain, called the kernel. His ideas were later used in another system called Multics. The Multics shell was a key step towards the Unix shell, which is still used today.
The First Email Ideas
Working with Glenda Schroeder and Pat Crisman, Pouzin also helped describe an early e-mail system. This system, called "MAIL," let users on the CTSS computer send messages to each other. Messages were added to a special file called a "MAIL BOX." Only the owner could read or delete their messages.
At first, this system was used for things like telling users that their files were backed up. It also helped people working on computer commands talk to each other. This early system only allowed messages between users on the same computer. The idea of sending messages between different computers came later, thanks to Ray Tomlinson in 1971.
Developing CYCLADES
From 1971 to 1976, Pouzin led the important CYCLADES networking project in France. He built on ideas from Donald Davies and the American ARPANET. Pouzin's team created the CIGALE network, which was a "packet switching" network. This means data was broken into small "packets" and sent across the network.
CYCLADES helped research how different computer networks could connect and work together. It used a layered system for its communication rules, much like how the Internet works today.
Global Internet Collaboration
In June 1972, Pouzin helped start the International Network Working Group at a conference in Paris. This group worked on developing ideas for how computer networks could connect worldwide. His work was recognized by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. They mentioned his contributions in their important 1974 paper about internetworking.
Promoting Multilingual Internet
In 2002, Pouzin and his colleagues helped create Eurolinc. This group works to make the internet more multilingual. They want people to be able to use domain names (like .com or .org) in many different languages and scripts. Eurolinc was even recognized by the United Nations in 2003.
In 2011, he co-founded a company called Savoir-Faire. In 2012, he developed a service called Open-Root. This service lets people create and use top-level domains (TLDs) outside of the main system. This allows more freedom for people to create their own internet addresses.
Awards and Recognition
Louis Pouzin has received many important awards for his pioneering work:
- 1997 – He received the ACM SIGCOMM Award for his early work on "connectionless packet communication."
- 2003 – The French government named him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
- 2012 – He was added to the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.
- 2013 – Pouzin was one of five internet pioneers to receive the first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
- 2016 – He received the Global IT Award.
- 2018 – He was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor.
See also
- History of the Internet
- Internet in France
- Internet pioneers
- Protocol Wars
- Rémi Després
