Today, we think of networking as synonymous with the Internet–a global interconnected network that encompasses not just computers but also millions of “smart” devices. But in this episode of The Computer Chronicles from late 1983, the focus was on local area networking or LANs. Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall talked with representatives from two companies that were at the forefront of developing the still-emerging standards for computer networking.

Cheifet opened by asking Kildall to define a local area network. Kildall noted that ever since we’d had computers, people had beeen trying to hook them up to transmit data back and forth between them. LANs were generally used in office environments and limited to a relatively small geographic area. This limited area allowed for better performance relative to more traditional network systems.