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<div>;-) I am afraid that Alex is right! ;-) I
mentioned Ritual for Catharsis #1 in an earlier message. </div>
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<div>All about the Big Bad Neighbor who delivered coal one lump at a
time.</div>
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<div>Gee, I wonder what *that* referred to!? ;-)</div>
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<div>If you don't have a copy, you should!</div>
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<div>At 14:55 -0700 2012/05/11, Alex McKenzie wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Bill,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I know MAP was perpetually annoyed by BBN
and always felt BBN claimed to have invented everything. I was
at BBN the entire time and I always felt most of Mike's criticism was
unjustified. BBN wrote a lot of papers, with ARPAs strong
encouragement, about what we did do, and BBN did a lot. We
didn't write about what others did- that was up to them. So if
others didn't write so much, the written history got kind of
BBN-centric.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>One notable exception: Ray
Tomlinson was credited by a lot of non-BBN people with "inventing
email" and Mike was justifiably upset every time he heard that
claim. Mike seems to have blamed BBN for making that claim.
However, I think you can look as carefully as you want at BBN
publications and you will not find that claim made by
BBN.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Sincerely,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Alex<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>
<hr size="1"></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1"><b>From:</b>
Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux@gmail.com><br>
<b>To:</b> David Elliott Bell <bell1945@offthisweek.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> "internet-history@postel.org"
<internet-history@postel.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:59 PM<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [ih] Hesitating to disagree with one of the
fathers of the InternetŠ..</font><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 5:34 PM, David
Elliott Bell <<a
href="mailto:bell1945@offthisweek.com">bell1945@offthisweek.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote>the need for layers (3 will do if you know what you're
going; if you don't, 11 won't help you);<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Correction, it is canonically '17 won't
help you' .</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>The ironic allusion to the hol(e)y 7 of
the Other Reference Model ("ISORM") makes this
MAPhorism much funnier than mere exaggeration.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
<blockquote>a world view about which layers and the rigidity required
to enforce layers; proposing alternate protocols for achieving a
desired goal; things like that are part of design-ARPANET.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
Mike having come to protocol design and programming via poetry rather
than prosaic electrical engineering, yes, he viewed layering as the
design, as the essense. The fact that both the IMPs and NCP have been
retired but the network that (D)ARPA wrought lives on as
"the Internet", over a hybrid hodgepodge of physical
subnets, militates that his logical view of The Net has won out over
the physical, just as the pragmatic, good-enough ARM has won out of
the overly baroque OSI ISORM .</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>However ...</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>The Popular History of the Net has
largely been told from the BBN POV. As an editorial/authorial
decision, this is understandably so, much though it may annoy those
who worked on upper layers. Having a for-profit's PR office on the
case doesn't hurt, but that is not solely responsible. It's easier to
follow BBN'S IMP/TIP narrative than a narrative spread over
several campuses and multiple OS's no one uses anymore, and far easier
to explain challenges of hardware than challenges of software to a
general audience. I have corroboration on that bald assertion --
Tracey Kidder interviewed the DG 'Eagle' operating system team manager
while researching 'Soul of the New Machine', and couldn't figure out
how to explain it, so went back to focusing on hardware and microcode
teams. Networking may be easier to make metaphor than an OS, but not
compared to modems.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>[I worked for said DG manager at his next
gig, and volunteered with a 'microkid' a few years later. The microkid
taught me to drink cognac at ACM committee meetings; Mike's whisky
lessons cured me of that quickly.] <br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>--<br>
Bill<br>
@n1vux <a
href="mailto:bill.n1vux@gmail.com">bill.n1vux@gmail.com</a></blockquote>
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