[ih] Fwd: Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily unreliable components

[Vint Cerf]

clears up some of the uncertainties


Vint Cerf
Google
1818 Library Street, Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
202-370-5637
vint at google.com




Begin forwarded message:

> From: "roger scantlebury" <roger.scantlebury at ntlworld.com>
> Date: March 22, 2009 2:47:08 PM EDT
> To: "'Vint Cerf'" <vint at google.com>
> Subject: RE: [ih] Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily  
> unreliable components
>
> Hi Vint
>
> We referenced Baran’s paper in our 1967 Gatlinburg ACM paper.  You  
> will find it in the References.  Therefore I am sure that we  
> introduced Baran’s work to Larry (and hence the BBN guys).
>
> We were unaware of Baran’s work when we started our own design work  
> in 1965, but were given a copy of his paper by one of our colleagues  
> in the UK Ministry of Defense (in 1966) while we were writing the  
> 1967 paper.  Clearly Donald and Paul Baran had independently come to  
> a similar idea – albeit for different purposes – Paul for a  
> survivable voice/telex network, ours for a high-speed computer  
> network.
>
> I hope this explains the time-line….
>
> Best Regards
>
> Roger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vint Cerf [mailto:vint at google.com]
> Sent: 19 March 2009 09:01
> To: Roger Scantlebury
> Subject: Fwd: [ih] Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily  
> unreliable components
>
> Roger,
>
> Is it your understanding that Donald and the NPL team were unaware  
> of the Baran work at RAND during the period of development of the  
> network at NPL? I don't think this has to do with anyone fighting  
> over paternity. It is just a question about when the various  
> "packet" efforts became aware of each other.
>
> For example, your interaction with Larry Roberts in 1967 is the key  
> link that drew ARPA and NPL groups into mutual awareness I think.
>
> I had once thought that you might have drawn Roberts' attention to  
> Baran's work but I suppose not, if you were unaware of it in 1967.  
> In fact, it would be of interest to know when and how you (or  
> Donald) might have learned of it?
>
> thanks, hope this finds you well!
>
> v
>
>
> Vint Cerf
> Google
> 1818 Library Street, Suite 400
> Reston, VA 20190
> 202-370-5637
> vint at google.com
>
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>
> From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
> Date: March 18, 2009 6:51:07 PM EDT
> To: internet-history at postel.org
> Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [ih] Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily  
> unreliable components
>
>> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>
>
>
> Davies not having access to RAND reports
>
> Oh, one minor point for the record on this.
>
> A summary of Baran's work was published in:
>
>  Paul Baran, "On Distributed Communications Networks", ('IEEE  
> Transactions on
>  Communications Systems', March 1964)
>
> Note the date - in Baran's oral history interview he notes (pp.  
> 40-41) that
> one work, a book (by Donald Davies, from context) had a typo and  
> listed the
> paper as being in 1969, an error that has since been widely copied  
> (with the
> obvious erroneous conclusions drawn) - to Baran's amusement! ("It's  
> fun to
> see many people refer to that paper with the 1969 date year after  
> year in
> footnotes and in bibliographies. It's obvious that they haven't read  
> the
> paper, only the reference to it.")
>
> I don't know how widespread ToCS was back then, but to reply to your
> observation above, it wasn't necessary to have had access to Baran's  
> reports
> to find out about his work back in '64 in pretty fair detail (I have  
> read the
> ToCS paper, and it covers the main points).
>
> Even more problematic, an abstract of Baran's '64 IEEE ToCS paper  
> had been
> published in IEEE Spectrum in August '64. I seem to recall doing some
> research to find out the circulation figures for that journal back  
> then, and
> I apparently discovered (no notes as to where I found this) that it  
> was about
> 160,000 in those days! I haven't seen that abstract though, to know  
> how
> detailed it was.
>
>
> Mind, I have no reason to doubt Davies' memory that he did not  
> recall seeing
> anything about Baran's work - but as I pointed out before, it's almost
> certainly impossible to prove, at this remove, that _some inkling_  
> of it did
> not reach him somehow, and he simply didn't remember.
>
> Still, Baran's ideas had been circulated quite openly and widely  
> through
> professional journals years before.
>
>             Noel
>

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