As a working system Ethernet differed from other PARC inventions in one crucial detail: It was explicitly designed to be imperfect. Metcalfe labeled the network a “best efforts” system—that is, the computers were instructed not to rely on everything working perfectly. This ensured that the system would not crash in the event of a single minor glitch (or even a torrent), of the sort certain to crop up in a network of bug-prone experimental computers. “I loved it,” said Kay, one of its earliest fans. “It was one of the great finesses of all time, an object lesson in how to make something work
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