Father of the Internet, may he rest in peace

When something is so omnipresent as the Internet, it’s easy to be ignorant about its pioneers. Just as nobody thinks about Thomas Edison when they are in a well-lit room at night, or the Wright brothers while up in the air, most people who surf online are oblivious to the name Robert Taylor while roaming cyberspace, doing research, uploading vacation photos or sending finished work from across the oceans. The computer scientist who was instrumental in the creation of the Internet and modern computers passed away earlier this month, at the age of 85.
Like many other inventors, Taylor’s great contributions to this world began with a nagging frustration. 
As a researcher for the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1966, he was extremely bothered by the fact that he had to use three separate terminals to communicate with others because their systems were incompatible. 
He created a network that could link all the projects he was working on. That network evolved into the Internet, as we know it.
In a 1968 paper, when the world was still a far cry from the first mass-marketed fax machine, he wrote: “In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face.” 
It took longer than just “a few years”, of course, but he finally saw his prediction come true in a spot-on manner. 
Communication systems are changing the world politically, socially and religiously.
A lot of other people have contributed to the creation and evolution of the Internet. 
But that is probably a big reason why Taylor gave such a telling gift to the world. 
Like every good innovation, the Internet encourages and supports further innovations. It has been democratising knowledge and empowering people who deserve to be empowered. Trade is a lot easier. 
Work is greatly facilitated. And ideas are constantly exchanged, blended and magnified. “Any way you look at it, from kick-starting the internet to launching the personal computer revolution, Bob Taylor was a key architect of our modern world,” Leslie Berlin, a historian at the Stanford University Silicon Valley Archives project, told the New York Times.
Many people are credited for the creation of personal computers. Taylor, however, was right there when laboratory workstations were evolving from something only top researchers had the privilege to work on to marketable products, with graphical user interface coming to the limelight. It can be said that Taylor and his team in 1970s helped make computers “friendlier” and thus inspired Microsoft’s Windows software and Apple personal hardware devices. 
He was also praised for supporting the creation of one of the major computer accessories – the mouse.
To newer generations, the name Steve Jobs sounds more familiar. But the late Steve Jobs, well-known for the “Connect the dots” quote, did wholeheartedly recognise Robert Taylor’s contributions. 
The iPod, iPhone and iPad all bear the fruits of the latter’s brainpower. This “modern world” can be traced back to the day when Taylor was getting annoyed by having to use too many computers for a job that should have been done by one.
The Internet and personal computers could have still emerged without Robert Taylor. But we are living in a world where he helped build, through vision, perseverance and outright frustration. 
It’s a world full of promise thanks to the utmost synergy spawned by the man. It has been a valuable contribution that is still making a big difference at the moment. May he rest in peace.