[ih] A laugh and a question

[Joe Touch]

David L. Mills wrote:
> Jack,
> 
> Packet InterNet Groper.
> 
> Fuzzballs did Cross Net Debugger (XNET), too, considered the first
> Internet Ambulance Service.
> 
> As I recall, ISI machines archived on 9-track magnetic tape. It's just
> possible those tapes might have survived. I even have my really old
> personal archives on that media.

FYI, I had looked for those tapes on the 20th anniversary of TCP, to
look for Jon's transition announcement message. Unfortunately, they were
disposed of (backups = windows into the past sufficient for expected
restorations; archives are something else, and were not considered
unfortunately).

I had moved my files through 9-track, diskettes, 4mm tapes, NeXT MOs,
hard drives, and DVDs over the years; it paid off when my 1985
undergraduate thesis code was sought (as recently as two weeks ago).
That sort of diligence is unfortunately required - even if the media
survive, the readers often don't.

Joe

> 
> Dave
> 
> Jack Haverty wrote:
> 
>> Ian et al,
>>
>> My organic archives are getting fuzzier every day, but my first memory
>> of the word "ping" applied to the Internet was at some meeting back in
>> the early 80s, probably an ICCB meeting (which later was renamed to be
>> called IAB). Dave Mills was reporting on his group's experiments with
>> fuzzballs torturing the toddler Internet. I was PI for the BBN
>> projects at the time which were implementing various TCPs and deploying
>> the "core" gateways. Dave was herding a gaggle of fuzzballs which were
>> poking and prodding the neonatal Internet. In fact, I think I remember
>> him characterizing it as a "big fuzzy pink thing" which you could poke
>> and prod and observe interesting behaviors, like turning green.
>> Wonderful imagery.
>>
>> Anyway, Dave reported that the most useful tool was "pinging". This was
>> before "the Unix implementation" which most people equate to the
>> Berkeley code. I know because I wrote the first Unix TCP implementation
>> on a poor little PDP-11/40 based on Jim Mathis' LSI-11 code, and I
>> hadn't had the insight to write any ping program, and the Berkeley code
>> didn't exist yet. We all had various ways of doing "ping" experiments -
>> e.g., create a packet in memory using DDT and call the packet-output
>> routine.
>>
>> Dave used to perform the most interesting experiments and find new ways
>> to make our gateway code keel over. Ping, source-routing, etc. were the
>> tools of the trade, but may not have yet been called by those names at
>> that time. We could launch a new gateway software release into the dark
>> alleys of the Internet, and Dave's minions (his army of fuzzy ones)
>> would find it pretty quickly and test its mettle.
>>
>> But I credit Dave with first applying the term "ping" to the Internet.
>> At least that's where I first recall hearing the term.
>>
>> Much of this lore was unfortunately not contained in the RFCs, which
>> typically came much later and documented history. The intense
>> "discussions" that I remember all happened on mailing lists, e.g., the
>> tcp-ip, internet-headers, header-people (email), etc. which were
>> maintained at ISI. I wonder if those old email archives are still
>> around. If so, they would be a fascinating insight into the maelstrom
>> that was the Internet's crucible.
>>
>> By the way, does anyone remember what PING stood for? Of course, at the
>> time everything was an acronym, and Dave had one for P.I.N.G.
>>
>> [My recollection of the answer in the next message to avoid spoiling the
>> fun....]
>>
>> /Jack Haverty
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2006-03-11 at 08:15 +1100, Ian Peter wrote:
>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> If you are I need of a good laugh, you might like to explore the
>>> following
>>> site
>>>
>>> http://ioih.org
>>>
>>> Which explains the history of an industrial steam driven Internet. I
>>> particularly liked the depictation of little children called pings
>>> who were
>>> employed to travel up and down the steam driven pipes of the Internet to
>>> make sure they didn't rust up.(the name arising from the noise they
>>> made as
>>> the brushes cleaned the pipes).
>>>
>>> But it did lead me to think - what was the origin of the word ping
>>> and its
>>> use in Internet? If anyone has some clues I'd be interested to hear.
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>>
>>>
>>> Ian Peter
>>> www.nethistory.info
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>