[ih] History of Network Virtual Terminal (NVT)

[John Day]

There was a general attitude at the time that symmetry was good, 
asymmetry bad;  degenerate cases were good; special cases were bad; 
that event driven was good, polled was bad; that streams were good, 
fixed records were bad; etc.  ;-)

IOW, we believed in good design discipline unlike most stuff done today.

Also if you think about it, as soon as one introduces a layer with an 
asymmetric service, it terminates the ability to build on top of it. 
One more thing is possible, but that is it.  Telnet being symmetrical 
is what enabled it to be used by other application protocols.

Take care,
John

At 12:47 -0500 2010/01/22, Vint Cerf wrote:
>interestingly this symmetry was deliberately baked into the TCP 
>protocol so maybe this was contagious?
>
>vint
>
>
>On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:00 PM, John Day wrote:
>
>>Actually, my question is who came up with making the protocol symmetrical?
>>
>>That was the brilliant insight, even more so than the NVT. 
>>Everyone else saw this problem as an assymmetric terminal to host 
>>protocol. What made Telnet unique and so useful was seeing it as 
>>symmetircal.
>>
>>I stell teach Telnet, not because everyone uses Telnet but as 
>>examples of insightful design.  Also the go-ahead solution for the 
>>same reason.
>>
>>Take care,
>>John
>>
>>At 11:38 -0500 2010/01/22, Vint Cerf wrote:
>>>Bernie,
>>>
>>>thanks so much for setting this straight - i had not remembered 
>>>the strong extent of the BBN work here.
>>>
>>>vint
>>>
>>>
>>>On Jan 22, 2010, at 11:13 AM, Bernie Cosell wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 22 Jan 2010 at 10:38, Vint Cerf wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>this was an idea that emerged from the network working group.
>>>>
>>>>Indeed, but a lot of the details ended up being done by me and bob
>>>>Clements.  I was implementing the NVT stuff on the TIP [and trying to get
>>>>the @#$%@#$% IBM 2741 to play nice] and Bob was working with the
>>>>corresponding code on TENEX, so since we were just a few offices away we
>>>>could easily try ideas and debug things.
>>>>
>>>>>... As I recall, Dave
>>>>>Walden was a strong proponent of the Do/Don't/Will/Won't idea.
>>>>
>>>>Actually, I did that.  We were playing with the problems of asynchronous
>>>>negotiation and I worked out the details of D/D/W/W on napkins on the
>>>>airplane as dave and I were flying to UCLA for a telnet meeting [at which
>>>>DDWW was presented].
>>>>
>>>>/Bernie\
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
>>>>mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com     Pearisburg, VA
>>>>   -->  Too many people, too few sheep  <--