Router

Hello. You might have seen me sitting in a corner of your house, a small box with friendly blinking lights. I’m a router, and I have one of the most exciting jobs in the world. I’m like a super-fast mail carrier for the internet. When you want to watch a video, send a message to a friend, or play an online game, that information needs to travel from your device to other computers far away. I take all those digital messages, look at where they need to go, and zip them off on the fastest, safest path possible. My lights blink to show you I’m hard at work, directing all that traffic. Before I came along, it was a much bigger problem. Imagine a bunch of islands, where each island was a computer network. The people on one island couldn't easily talk to the people on another. They spoke different languages and there were no bridges between them. That’s where my story begins, with the puzzle of how to build those bridges.

My story started at a big school called Stanford University around the year 1980. It was a busy place filled with clever people and lots of different kinds of computers. The problem was, these computers were all on separate networks that couldn't understand each other. It was like having a room full of people who all spoke different languages. An engineer named William Yeager was given the challenge to fix this. He needed to create something that could act as a translator and a guide. So, he built me. My first version wasn't fancy. I was just a circuit board inside a metal box, and because the box was painted blue, everyone called me the 'Blue Box.' My job was to listen to every network, no matter what special language it spoke. When a message came to me from one network, I would figure out where it needed to go on another network. Then, I’d choose the very best route for it, like a pilot choosing the fastest flight path, and send it on its way. For the first time, all the different computers at the university could finally have a conversation, all thanks to me.

While I was busy working at Stanford, two other people noticed what I could do. Their names were Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, and they worked in different departments at the university. They were frustrated because Leonard’s computer network couldn’t easily send messages to Sandy’s network. They wanted to send emails to each other, but the digital 'islands' were still in their way. They saw how I, the 'Blue Box,' was connecting everything and had a brilliant idea. They realized that if a university needed help connecting its computers, then businesses, schools, and even families all over the world would need that help too. They decided to build more of me for everyone. On December 10th, 1984, they started their own company called Cisco Systems. It was a very important day for me. It was the moment I realized I wasn’t just a solution for a university; I was about to go out into the world and help connect everyone.

From that university lab, my journey began. Soon, my brothers and sisters, all different kinds of routers, started appearing in offices, schools, and homes. My design changed over the years, getting smaller and faster, but my job has always stayed the same: to connect you. Today, I work quietly day and night, making sure you can do amazing things. When you have a video call with your grandparents who live far away, I am the one sending your smiles and voices across the world. When you play a game with friends in another country, I make sure your moves happen in an instant. When you research a school project online, I help bring all of that knowledge right to your screen. I am a quiet but important helper, and I was born from curiosity. So always keep asking questions, because you never know if your idea will be the one that connects the whole world in a new way.