The first fifty years of ACM SIGCOMM

Abstract

Network researchers know that packets are not always evenly spaced, they sometimes arrive in bursts. This burstiness is also present in history. Important events sometimes occur almost simultaneously even if there is no direct relationship between them. Fifty years ago, several historical events took place within a period of a few months. In July, after years of efforts, NASA engineers successfully launched Apollo 13 and the Eagle landed on the Moon. The first footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have opened the era of space exploration and maybe another human will land on another planet during this century. One month later, hundreds of thousands of music fans gathered at the Woodstock festival. In parallel, a few computer scientists and engineers started to deploy prototype nodes of the ARPANET network. The first packets that they exchanged have initiated the revolution that brought the Internet and today's connected society. At that time, research in computer networks had already started and several members of this emerging community gathered in an interest group that later became ACM SIGCOMM.