Roger Scantlebury facts for kids
Roger Anthony Scantlebury (born in August 1936) is a British computer expert and a true Internet trailblazer. He helped create the early technologies that led to the internet we use today. He worked at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and later at a company called Logica.
Roger Scantlebury was a leader in developing something called packet switching at NPL in the late 1960s. This was a new way to send information across computer networks. He also helped create the rules, or protocols, for how computers talk to each other. He even suggested using this technology for the ARPANET, which was an early version of the Internet. In the 1970s, he played a big part in shaping the rules that became part of the Internet's main communication system.
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Early Life
Roger Scantlebury was born in a place called Ealing, in England, in 1936.
Building the Internet's Foundations
Working at NPL
Roger Scantlebury worked at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London. He started by working on early computers like the Automatic Computing Engine.
Later, he was asked to help develop Donald Davies' new ideas about packet switching. This was a revolutionary way to send data. Imagine sending a letter, but instead of one big envelope, you break it into many small pieces (packets). Each piece finds its own way to the destination and then gets put back together. This makes sending information much faster and more reliable.
In 1967, Roger Scantlebury and Keith Bartlett were the first to use the word protocol in a modern way for computer communication. A protocol is like a set of rules that computers follow to understand each other.
Sharing New Ideas
In October 1967, Roger Scantlebury went to a big meeting in the United States. There, he explained the amazing idea of packet switching that they were developing at NPL. Another important person at this meeting was Larry Roberts from ARPA. Larry Roberts had never heard of packet switching before. Roger Scantlebury convinced him and other American engineers that this was the best way to build the ARPANET. The ARPANET was a very early computer network that eventually grew into the Internet.
After this, Roger Scantlebury led the creation of the NPL Data Communications Network. This network started working in early 1969. It was the very first time packet switching was used in a real network. It was also the first network to use very fast connections.
In 1969, he also worked with the Post Office Telecommunications. His team developed an important rule for sending data called the alternating bit protocol (ABP).
International Collaboration
From 1972, Roger Scantlebury was a key member of the International Network Working Group (INWG). This group included many of the people who were building the early Internet, like Vint Cerf. He attended a meeting in New York in 1973 that helped decide how international network rules would work.
His work was even mentioned by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf in their famous 1974 paper about how different networks could connect. In 1975, he helped write a standard rule for how computers should talk to each other across networks.
Roger Scantlebury later became the head of the data networks group at NPL. He helped the UK contribute to the European Informatics Network. This network connected important research centers across Europe, like CERN and INRIA.
Later Work
In 1977, Roger Scantlebury joined a company called Logica. There, he worked on another important communication rule called X.25. He also helped create the Euronet, which was a large European network that used X.25.
He continued to work in the computer and software industry for many years. He worked for companies like Mercator Software and Kofax. He retired in 2020.
Personal Life
Roger Scantlebury married Christine Appleby in 1958. They have two sons and a daughter. He lives in Esher.
He also helped convince NPL to support a special exhibit about the "Technology of the Internet" at The National Museum of Computing. This exhibit opened in 2009 and helps people learn about how the Internet was created.
See also
