<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Helvetica;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Helvetica Neue";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
h2
{mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 2 Char";
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
font-weight:bold;}
h3
{mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 3 Char";
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
font-weight:bold;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.msonormal0, li.msonormal0, div.msonormal0
{mso-style-name:msonormal;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.EmailStyle19
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif;}
span.Heading2Char
{mso-style-name:"Heading 2 Char";
mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 2";
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
font-weight:bold;}
span.Heading3Char
{mso-style-name:"Heading 3 Char";
mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 3";
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
font-weight:bold;}
p.css-1ygdjhk, li.css-1ygdjhk, div.css-1ygdjhk
{mso-style-name:css-1ygdjhk;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
p.css-gboh45, li.css-gboh45, div.css-gboh45
{mso-style-name:css-gboh45;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-size:10.0pt;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'>That’s only one of several great lines in that obit, with a Katie Hafner byline no less. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/obituaries/lawrence-g-roberts-dies-at-81.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/obituaries/lawrence-g-roberts-dies-at-81.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'>For those who don’t have NYT access:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>In late 1966, a 29-year-old computer scientist drew a series of abstract figures on tracing paper and a quadrille pad. Some resembled a game of cat’s cradle; others looked like heavenly constellations; still others like dress patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Those curious drawings were the earliest topological maps of what we now know as the internet. The doodler, <a href="https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/lawrence-roberts" target="_blank"><span style='color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Lawrence G. Roberts</span></a>, died on Dec. 26 at his home in Redwood City, Calif. He was 81.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>The cause was a heart attack, said his son Pasha.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>As a manager at the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, Dr. Roberts designed much of the Arpanet — the internet’s precursor — and oversaw its implementation in 1969.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts called upon a circle of colleagues who shared his interest in computer networking for help in creating the technical underpinnings of the <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-the-internet-was-born-from-the-arpanet-to-the-internet-68072" target="_blank"><span style='color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Arpanet</span></a>, integrating and refining many ideas for how data should flow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts was considered the decisive force behind packet switching, the technology that breaks data into discrete bundles that are then sent along various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. He decided to use packet switching as the underlying technology of the Arpanet; it remains central to the function of the internet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>And it was Dr. Roberts’s decision to build a network that distributed control of the network across multiple computers. Distributed networking remains another foundation of today’s internet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts’s interest in computer networking began when he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. He paid close attention to the work of his longtime colleague, <a href="https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/leonard-kleinrock" target="_blank"><span style='color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Leonard Kleinrock</span></a>, who had done research on theoretical aspects of computer networks, analyzing the problem of data flow. Dr. Roberts also followed the ideas of<a href="https://internethalloffame.org/inductees/jcr-licklider" target="_blank"><span style='color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'> J.C.R. Licklider</span></a>, a prominent psychologist and predecessor of Dr. Roberts’s at ARPA, who envisioned what he called an “intergalactic computer network.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>It was under Dr. Roberts’s leadership at ARPA that the possibilities of computer networking began to grow clear to a community beyond the core of scientists who built the Arpanet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>He long believed that a computer network was of little importance unless it was used in interesting ways. As early as 1968, he exhorted his colleagues to create applications for the nascent network. ARPA, for instance, was one of the largest early users of electronic mail.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“Larry led us to uncover potential that we never would have seen had he not pushed so hard for increased functionality,” said Vinton G. Cerf, Google’s chief internet evangelist and a graduate student in computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles when Dr. Roberts was overseeing the building of the Arpanet. “He pushed all of us to find ways in which we could make good on the promise of resource sharing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>He was also a serial entrepreneur and corporate executive. After leaving ARPA in 1973, Dr. Roberts founded or co-founded a half-dozen companies focused on computer networking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Lawrence Gilman Roberts was born on Dec. 21, 1937, in Westport, Conn., the youngest of three children. His parents, Elliott and Elizabeth, were both chemists who had met in the Yale University chemistry department while pursuing their doctorates.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>As a young child, using his father’s chemistry books and chemicals, Dr. Roberts built a series of rockets and bombs. He recalled that one of his youthful experiments produced a chlorine gas byproduct, “which put me in the hospital under an oxygen tent because I sniffed it to see what was happening,” he said in an interview for this obituary in May.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>When he was in sixth grade, he built an elevator to ascend an oak tree in his yard. He was sitting in it one day when a connector broke. He fell to the ground and broke his neck. “They were quite used to me in the hospital,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>But it was electronics that eventually captured his attention. “I wanted something new, not old like chemistry,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from M.I.T. in 1959. That year he married June Stuller, a computer programmer. They divorced in 1974. Three subsequent marriages also ended in divorce.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>By the time Dr. Roberts received his Ph.D. in 1963, also in electrical engineering, he was already working at M.I.T.’s Lincoln Laboratory, a government research facility. He soon encountered the TX-0, an early computer, and used it to build an optical character recognition program. He also did early work in computer graphics and virtual reality. He and a colleague, <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/ivan-e-sutherland/" target="_blank"><span style='color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Ivan Sutherland</span></a>, built an ultrasonic pointing device that could manipulate objects on a screen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Initial attempts to recruit him to ARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office to oversee the technical structure of the Arpanet failed. He was reluctant to leave Lincoln Lab for a job he viewed as largely administrative. But eventually he agreed, and arrived at the Pentagon in December 1966.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Stephen Crocker, a computer scientist who worked for Dr. Roberts at ARPA, said his boss’s dislike of wasted time was legendary. “Within a few weeks, he had the place memorized,” recalled Dr. Crocker, referring to the labyrinthine Pentagon building. “As I’ve heard the story, Roberts obtained a stopwatch and began timing various routes to his frequent destinations.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“‘Larry’s Route’ soon became commonly known as the fastest distance between any two Pentagon points,” Dr. Crocker said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Kleinrock, who had shared an office with Dr. Roberts at Lincoln Lab, said that after Dr. Roberts arrived at ARPA, he showed Dr. Kleinrock and other colleagues his sketches of the network’s topology and logic. Hundreds of drawings later, he chose a distributed network, rather than a centralized or star configuration, to serve as the backbone of the Arpanet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>But even as he focused on the overall architecture, he remained committed to finding practical uses for the nascent network.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Email, an application that ARPA-sponsored researchers had spent a great deal of time developing, quickly became one of the most popular applications on the Arpanet. When asked about that at a technical conference in 1986, Dr. Roberts said he was not surprised.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>The ARPA director “decided it was a great thing, and he made everybody in ARPA use it,” Dr. Roberts said. “So all these managers of ballistic missile technology, who didn’t know what a computer was, had to start using electronic mail.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts added that he had received a note years earlier from Paul Baran, another networking pioneer, warning against personal use of email.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“It said, ‘One thing you ought to watch out for is you can’t send out personal message stuff, that’s illegal. That’s against the postal laws and you’ll be in jail in no time.’” Mr. Baran’s warning notwithstanding, there was no stopping the personal messages. “But we didn’t happen to go to jail,” Dr. Roberts told the audience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts left ARPA in 1973 to become the founding chief executive of Telenet, a networking company that used packet switching. Seven years later, Dr. Roberts and his co-founders sold Telenet to GTE for $60 million.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>The start-ups that followed focused on flow control algorithms for internet traffic and did not achieve the same level of success. He ultimately failed to amass significant wealth from the internet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“It’s like you created the Spider-Man character and it turned into a giant franchise, but you only got paid by the hour for drawing it,” said Pasha Roberts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Yet Dr. Roberts remained philosophical about this aspect of his life. “It’s sad that it didn’t benefit me,” he said in the 2018 interview. “But it’s interesting, and I love the knowledge I gained from building it and using it and understanding it from the beginning.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align=center style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;background:#F7F7F7;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#CCCCCC;text-transform:uppercase'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>The interview took place in Dr. Roberts’s modest house in Redwood City, a town in Silicon Valley, which he shared with his longtime partner, Dr. Tedde Rinker, a physician.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>Dr. Roberts is survived by Dr. Rinker and his son Pasha, as well as two sisters, Mary Annis Arris and Ruth Esther Bennett. A second son, Kenny, died in 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>In 2018, the biggest problem he saw with the internet was network security.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“I envision someday getting software into the network that helps curb attacks, but that’s going to take a lot of work,” he said. “It’s got to be distributed around the network in order to solve the problem. So that’s the project I keep thinking about, but I don’t have a solution.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='background:white;vertical-align:baseline;margin:1.25rem;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>He was quick to dismiss detractors who said the internet had sparked the demise of brick-and-mortar retail stores.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=css-1ygdjhk style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;text-size-adjust: 100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;font-size:1.1875rem;line-height:1.8125rem;max-width:100%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333'>“I think it’s wonderful, and I think they should go out of business, because going to the store is ridiculous,” he said. The doorbell rang, and Dr. Roberts excused himself to take delivery of groceries he had ordered online.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>_______</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Evan Schuman</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="mailto:eschuman@thecontentfirm.com" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>eschuman@thecontentfirm.com</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="tel:973-993-8098" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>973-993-8098</span></a> (voice)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Computerworld weekly columnist (Column archive: <a href="http://www.thecontentfirm.com/weekly-column-on-computerworld" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>http://www.thecontentfirm.com/weekly-column-on-computerworld</span></a>)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Moderator for MIT Sloan Management Review events<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Google Search: <a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Evan+Schuman"><span style='color:blue'>http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Evan+Schuman#</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="https://twitter.com/eschuman" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>https://twitter.com/eschuman</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/schumanevan/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>www.linkedin.com/in/schumanevan/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><i><span style='font-size:8.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Member, Internet Press Guild: <a href="http://netpress.org/" target="_blank"><span style='color:#1155CC'>http://netpress.org/</span></a></span></i><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces@netpress.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Phil Shapiro<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, December 31, 2018 5:09 PM<br><b>To:</b> ipg-smz <ipg-smz@netpress.org><br><b>Subject:</b> [Ipg-smz] From the Larry Roberts NYT obit<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>When he was in sixth grade, he built an elevator to ascend an oak tree in his yard. He was sitting in it one day when a connector broke. He fell to the ground and broke his neck. “They were quite used to me in the hospital,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>-- <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>--<br>Phil Shapiro, <a href="mailto:pshapiro@his.com">pshapiro@his.com</a><br><a href="http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html">http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/philshapiro">http://www.twitter.com/philshapiro</a><br><a href="http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html">http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html</a><br><br>"Wisdom begins with wonder." - Socrates<br>"Learning happens thru gentleness."<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",serif;color:#333333;background:white'>"We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options." David Suzuki</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>