[ih] Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily unreliable components

[John Day]

See what I get for assuming!  ;-)  I should have known they couldn't 
keep their hands out of it.  ;-0

But then reading it closely, this is really what I had in mind, 
levels of abstraction (a seeming a lost concept in CS these days). 
The ARPA people were outlining the general properties: distributed 
control, packet switching, etc.  But not specifying details like what 
routing algorithm, how to do error correction, etc.

Thanks Craig, good to see this.

John


At 9:34 -0400 2009/03/12, Craig Partridge wrote:
>In message <a06240806c5deb1e19916@[10.0.1.43]>, John Day writes:
>
>>I think Noel is dead on.  It is reasonably clear that Baran
>>influenced ARPA, but that Davies not having access to RAND reports
>>came up with the idea independently.
>>
>>At the level of ARPA deciding to fund such a thing, the influence is
>>going to be nebulous as he describes after all it is a management
>>level.   They are looking at the idea from a high level.  They aren't
>>going to worry about the details. If you want to see if Baran's ideas
>>were implemented then it would be ARPA that you want to look at but
>>BBN.
>
>Actually, ARPA apparently did worry about some details -- per Bob
>Taylor's note about central vs. distributed control (embedded in this
>a larger note which I attach for context).
>
>Craig
>
>>  Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>  From: Bob Taylor <R.W.Taylor at comcast.net>
>>  Date: October 6, 2004 2:45:03 AM EDT
>>  To: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
>>  Subject: [IP] more on 35th Anniversary of the Internet (well the start=20
>>  of the Arpanet anyway djf)
>>
>>    Hello Dave.=A0 I agree with you that Rick Adams was "right to the=20
>>  point".=A0 Here is some more ARPAnet history background.
>>
>>    In February of 1966 I initiated the ARPAnet project.=A0 I was Director=20
>>  of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) from late '65=20
>>  to late '69.=A0 There were only two people involved in the decision to=20
>>  launch the ARPAnet:=A0 my boss, the Director of ARPA Charles Herzfeld,=20
>>  and me.
>>
>>    From 1962 to 1970, beginning with J.C.R. Licklider, Ivan Sutherland,=20
>>  and then me, IPTO funded several of the first projects devoted to the=20
>>  creation of interactive computing -- then referred to as time-sharing.=A0=
>>  =20
>>  In '64 - '65, I witnessed that within each local site when users were=20
>>  first connected by a time-sharing system, a community of people with=20
>>  common interests began to discover one another and interact through the=20
>>  medium of the computer.=A0 I was struck by the fact that this was a=20
>>  wonderfully new and powerful phenomenon.=A0
>>
>>    The next obvious step was to connect those sites with an interactive=20
>>  network.=A0 To me, computing was about communication, not arithmetic.=A0=20
>>  Hence the ARPAnet.
>>    This theme is elaborated in a paper Lick and I wrote in 1968 entitled,=20
>>  "The Computer as a Communications Device".=A0 Google can find it for=20
>>  you.=A0 On the last couple of pages there is a scenario that is=20
>>  reminiscent of today's Internet.
>>
>>    Numerous untruths have been disseminated about events surrounding the=20
>>  origins of the ARPAnet.=A0 Here are some facts:
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 The creation of the ARPAnet was not motivated=
>>   by=20
>>  considerations of war.=A0 The ARPAnet was created to enable folks with=20
>>  common interests to connect to one another through interactive=20
>>  computing even when widely separated by geography.
>>
>>  =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 The singularly most important contribution to t=
>>  he=20
>>  architectural design of the ARPAnet/Internet came from Wesley Clark:=A0=20
>>  the interface message processor (IMP).=A0 Wes is the designer of the LINC=
>>  =20
>>  which was arguably the first personal computer.=A0 Wes' ARPAnet concept=20
>>  ensured the critically valuable distributed architecture of the=20
>  > ARPAnet.=A0 Prior to Wes' contribution, Larry Roberts, whom I hired in=20
>>  Dec '66 to be ARPAnet's program manager, was considering a single,=20
>>  central ARPAnet control computer at a military base in Nebraska.=A0=20
>>  Fortunately, Wes quickly disabused Roberts of this notion.
>>
>>
>>  =A0=A0=A0 The most significant role in actually building the ARPAnet was=20
>>  played by Frank Heart and his Bolt, Beranek & Newman team:=A0 Severo=20
>>  Ornstein, Will Crowther, Bob Barker, Bernie Cosell, Dave Walden, and=20
>>  Bob Kahn.=A0
>>
>>    =A0=A0=A0 Two suspicious claims relating to the ARPAnet were an important=
>>  =20
>>  part of the case for awarding the 2001 Draper Prize to Kahn and=20
>>  Kleinrock.=A0
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0 1. Kahn has claimed far and wide to be "responsible for the=
>>  =20
>>  systems=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 design of the ARPAnet" while a member of the BB&=
>>  N team.=A0 Since
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 no other team member agrees, I doubt the validit=
>>  y of this=20
>>  claim.=A0
>>    =A0=A0=A0 2.=A0 Roberts and Kleinrock (close friends since college) began=
>>   to=20
>>  claim
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 in 1995, more than 30 years after the fact, that=
>>   Kleinrock=20
>>  invented=A0=A0
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 packet switching.=A0 Most of us believe that Don=
>>  ald Davies in=20
>>  England
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 and Paul Baran in the U.S. independently invente=
>>  d packet=20
>>  switching in
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 the early '60s.
>>    I believe these two claims are false but they are recorded as facts on=20
>>  the web sites of the National Academy of Engineering and the Computer=20
>>  History Museum.=A0 The worst property of self-promotion is that it takes=20
>>  credit away from the people who actually made the contributions.=A0=20
>>  Roberts, Kahn, and Kleinrock have, however, made other important=20
>>  contributions.=A0 These can only be tarnished by extravagant claims.
>>
>>  =A0=A0=A0 Packet switching is an important part of modern networking, but i=
>>  t=20
>>  is not the only key piece.=A0 The multiplicity of the applications and=20
>>  the openness of the standards also played critical roles in ARPAnet=20
>>  development, as did Steve Crocker's initiation and management of the=20
>>  RFC process.
>>
>>
>>  =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 I believe the first internet was created at Xer=
>>  ox PARC, circa=20
>>  '75, when we connected, via PUP, the Ethernet with the ARPAnet.=A0 PUP=20
>>  (PARC Universal Protocol) was instrumental later in defining TCP (ask=20
>>  Metcalfe or Shoch, they were there).=A0
>>
>>    =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 For the internet to grow, it also needed a ne=
>>  tworked=20
>>  personal computer, a graphical user interface with WYSIWYG properties,=20
>>  modern word processing, and desktop publishing.=A0 These, along with the=20
>>  Ethernet, all came out of my lab at Xerox PARC in the '70s, and were=20
>>  commercialized over the next 20 years by Adobe, Apple, Cisco,=20
>>  Microsoft, Novell, Sun and other companies that were necessary to the=20
>>  development of the Internet.
>>
>>
>>  =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0The ARPAnet was not an internet.=A0 An internet is =
>>  a connection=20
>>  between two or more computer networks.=A0 The ARPAnet, with help from=20
>>  thousands of people, slowly evolved into the Internet.=A0 Without the=20
>>  ARPAnet, the Internet would have been a much longer time in coming.
>>
>>
>>    rwt