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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Not just taxis...<br>
<br>
It's been a looonnggg time, but I still remember studying a lot of
mathematics about 50 years ago - queueing theory, graph theory,
etc. Used to be able to do it too.<br>
<br>
My recollection is that terms such as "flow control" and
"congestion control" were used in mathematics, well before they
were used in computer networks. <br>
<br>
I suspect the answer to "when were the terms "flow control" and
"congestion control" coined will be found in the history of
mathematics - not computers. Such terms have been in use a long
time. They were coined long before computers.<br>
<br>
Computer and later network people just used the terms to describe
the behavior of flows of bits, just as earlier engineers and
scientists used them to describe the flow of people, railroad
cars, components in manufacturing lines, warehouse inventory, etc.<br>
<br>
For example, the problem of where to put railroad tracks, and
where to put railroad yards (and how big) to provide "buffers" for
flows of goods is fundamentally the same as where to put packet
switches, memory, circuits, etc., in computer networks.<br>
<br>
The whole field of Operations Research is about that kind of math
used in engineering, business, etc., long before computers did.<br>
<br>
Of course computers made it possible to actually do the
calculations fast, and that changed the way the math got used.<br>
<br>
/Jack Haverty<br>
<br>
<br>
On 08/22/2014 07:33 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:<br>
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<blockquote
cite="mid:CAHxHggcCev1LLf9Ok0b+exFPEku3yEW+CR_De7O1y2WUQ1KtKA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Donald Davies had the idea of an isarithmic
network: a fixed number of packets in the network at all times.
Issues however included getting "empty packets" to places with
data to send. Like the taxi problem where they end up at favored
destinations but are not available without deadheading to
favored origins.
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<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/224730989_The_Control_of_Congestion_in_Packet-Switching_Networks">http://www.researchgate.net/publication/224730989_The_Control_of_Congestion_in_Packet-Switching_Networks</a><br>
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<div>v</div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Noel
Chiappa <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu" target="_blank">jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> >
From: "James P.G. Sterbenz" <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jpgs@ittc.ku.edu">jpgs@ittc.ku.edu</a>><br>
<br>
> All network historians and scientists should own
...<br>
<div class=""> > L. Pouzin, _The Cyclades Computer
Network_, North-Holland, 1982<br>
<br>
</div>
Indeed - it has an honoured place on my bookshelf. The
importance of<br>
CYCLADES/CIGALE in the history of data network cannot be
over-emphasized,<br>
IMO.<br>
<div class=""><br>
> in which congestion is covered in Chap. 4 on
Cigale.<br>
<br>
</div>
4.4.6, to be exact. Looking at their congestion control
mechanism, it's<br>
fairly complex - not sure if it would work in a
heterogeneous network like<br>
today's Internet, though. Still, interesting...<br>
<div class=""><br>
> There were likely much earlier Cyclades papers
mentioning congestion<br>
> before this retrospective monograph.<br>
<br>
</div>
Yes, about the earliest appears to be:<br>
<br>
M. Irland, "Queueing analysis of a buffer allocation
scheme for a packet<br>
switch", Proc. IEEE-NTC '75, New Orleans, Dec. 1975<br>
<br>
There are some slightly earlier ones by him (her?), but they
appear to be<br>
progress reports on a simulation project which was part of a
PhD thesis at<br>
the University of Waterloo (completed in April 1977), and
not widely<br>
distributed.<br>
<br>
<br>
In looking for the references in that book to the congestion
work, though, I<br>
stumbled across this one:<br>
<br>
D. W. Davies, "The Control of Congestion in Packet
Switching Networks",<br>
Proc. 2nd Symp. on Problems of Optimization of Data Comm.
Systems,<br>
Palo Alto, Oct. 1971<br>
<br>
I don't have access to that, but it would be interesting to
see what it<br>
covers.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Noel<br>
</font></span></blockquote>
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