Ethernet

Robert Metcalfe, USA, patent 4,063,220 of 1977. The coaxial network that became the world's default wire.

Overview

Xerox PARC's Metcalfe designed the collision-sense multiple-access network in 1973, patenting with Boggs and Thacker in 1977. DEC, Intel, and Xerox published it as an open standard, DIX, betting adoption over monopoly. The bet worked: Ethernet beat Token Ring and every rival by cheap ubiquity. Metcalfe founded 3Com, wrote columns, and now predicts consolidations. Every router port and data-center spine runs his frame format. The 1977 patent's open standardization built the wired planet.