Packet switch
From Computer History Wiki
A packet switch is a switching node in a data transmission network using packets (as opposed to circuit switching).
The first packet switches were minicomputers provided with serial line interfaces (since synchronous serial lines the only data transmission technology available for the first packet data networks), such as the [[Interface Message Processor]s of the ARPANET.
The early generations of routers, used in the first decades of the Internet, were similar, but could use interfaces to the various local area network technologies (e.g. Ethernet).
More recently, very high speed packet switches use custom hardware.
