R.I.P.
Tuesday October 20, 1:05 am Eastern Time
"Father of the Internet" Jonathan
Postel dead at 55
(Recasts, pvs PALO ALTO)
LOS ANGELES, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Jonathan Postel, one of a
handful of people who 30 years ago built the global computer
network that is today's Internet, has died at the age of 55.
Friends and colleagues of Postel said he died in a Santa Monica, Calif., hospital over the weekend from complications following surgery on a leaking heart valve.
Postel, who was often called ''the father of the Internet,'' began his work linking computers back in the 1960s when he was a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles.
As the Internet grew in recent years, he was instrumental in managing many of the increasingly complex technical details that helped keep online communications running relatively smoothly.
He served as director of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and developed a complex number and naming system that matched popular Internet addresses with numerical addresses computers could read. The system effectively instructed computers where to route traffic and gave Internet users an easy way to log on to different Web sites.
To non-technical people, Postal's work may have seemed mundane, but it was his attention to all the finer details of routing information through cyberspace that helped fuel the phenomenal growth of the
network in recent years.
Although when he began his work the Internet was a little-known network used mainly by academic types, he helped steer its evolution into a popular consumer device that was easy for almost anyone
to use, even when they had little understanding of computers.
''Jon Postel was an important historical figure in the development of the Internet,'' one of his colleagues, Network Solutions Inc. Chief Executive Officer Gabe Battista, said in a statement.
''His work over the past decades played a significant part in the worldwide growth and development of the Internet as we know it today,'' he said.
Postel remained active in Internet policy matters up until his hospitalization. As recently as a few weeks ago, he had submitted a plan to the Clinton administration for a new worldwide Internet
address system.
Without him we wouldn't be here.
purething
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