Oral history interview with Jean-Louis Grangé by Andrew L. Russell

Abstract

Jean-Louis Grangé explains how he began working with computers in the 1960s and 1970s, and how he worked with Louis Pouzin on projects in the French weather bureau, automobile industry, and the Cyclades project at the Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique. With Cyclades, Grangé was in charge of the “Cigale” datagram packet-switching network. He reflects upon his interactions with engineers within Cyclades, engineers in the French Ministry of Telecommunication, as well as with engineers in the United States working on the Arpanet.

This set of nine interviews conducted with Tilly Bayard-Richard, Najah Naffah, Louis Pouzin, Marc E. Levilion, Michel Gien, Jean-Louis Grangé, Gérard Le Lann, Rémi Després, and André Danthine was funded by the ACM History Committee with a fellowship on “European Contributions to Computer Networks: An Oral History Project.”