Did hams contribute to invention of the WWW?

[SM0AOM]

Eric Scace K3NA has not been mentioned yet.

He put in a lot of effort as member of the ITU/CCITT working groups that developed
many general principles behind packet switching used in the X.25 protocols, and was frequently
referenced to when I took part in ITU/CCIR digital radio work in the late 80's.

73/
Karl-Arne
SM0AOM

[KB9MWR]

As mentioned, Phil Karn, KA9Q has about 6 RFCs. Not to forget his roles with spread spectrum and dsp work leading to his employment with Qualcomm. Helping empowering todays wireless CDMA (smart phone) networks.

I never found out if Norman Abramson was a ham and if so, what his callsign was.

Back 1969, he launched Aloha Project at University of Hawaii.

"Motivated by the poor telephone lines in the Hawaiian Islands, funded by ARPA to investigate how to build a packet switched network based on fixed site radio links. At the University of Hawaii it was not really an option to use the PSTN or any form of cabling between Hawaii’s many islands. It opted instead to connect the seven colleges spread across four islands by the use of amateur radio. Norm performed a number of experiments around 1970 to develop methods to arbitrate access to a shared radio channel by network nodes. This system operated on UHF frequencies at 9600 baud. Abramson later developed a satellite version of ALOHAnet called PACNET."

Internet Pioneer Paul Baran, became a ham later (W3KAS) but was an engineer who helped create the technical underpinnings for the Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today’s Internet. In the early and mid 60's Paul came up with the concepts of packet switching and distributed networks.

Not too surprisingly Baran subsequently founded a slew of technology companies including Packet Technologies and Metricom, and still continued to be actively involved in founding new start-ups – the most recent being Ethernet over wireline outfit Plaster Networks, and the IP TV infrastructure company GoBackTV.


In the 1970's Dr. Hank Magnuski (KA6M) secured a class A network of IP addresses referred to as 44-Net or AMPRnet. This enabled tech savy hams like Phil Karn and many-many other hams to help with development of todays internet by interconnecting radios to the internet.

I believe Fred N Van Kempen, PA4YBR wrote a widely used open source PPP driver (dial up utility)