Don Cone

Virgil Donald Cone (October 17, 1926 – April 7, 2011) was a technician and later researcher at SRI International who developed and ran the Packet Radio Van that was used in the first ARPANET internetworked transmission.

Early life and education Cone dedicated his early life to the study of photography, in particular at the Fred Archer School of Photography under Fred R. Archer, who was a partner of Ansel Adams.

Cone served in the United States Army Air Corps for about a year near the end of World War II; he broke his wrist during basic training and was hospitalized in Coral Gables, Florida, and was reassigned as a medical photographer in that hospital.

The Packet Radio Van, designed by Don Cone, was a large GMC van and contained all of the equipment needed to be an ARPANET node via packet radio. Other equipment included a shielded generator, a DEC LSI-11 16-bit minicomputer, flexible equipment racks, and air conditioning. Due to his contributions around that time, Cone was promoted to Research Engineer.

Cone retired from SRI in the early 1990s, and focused on his love of photography; he embraced digital photography when that technology developed. He died of pancreatic and lung cancer on April 7, 2011.