[ih] birth of the Internet?

[Vint Cerf]

- there was clearly an experimental activity up until 1/1/1983. The
folks in Europe were forced to use the Packet Satellite network and
X.25 networks to access the US during 1982 at least, so it could be
that Eric Rosen was monitoring that as a operational if somewhat
experimental system? Peter Kirstein would know since he managed at
least the UK part of the operational SATNET access.

v

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 3:29 PM, James J Dempsey <jjd at jjd.com> wrote:
> Miles asks:
>
>> Sure.  Is there anybody here who doesn't think that the (capital I)
>> Internet started with the ARPANET as its backbone, well before the
>> NSFnet was a gleam in anybody's eye?
>
> With help from someone else's memory, I could argue that The Internet
> started *before* the ARPANET was connected to it.
>
> I recall being in the BBN NOC the day the ARPANET transitioned from NCP to
> TCP.  That NOC was on the 5th floor of BBN's building 6.  Sometime pretty
> soon after that, the NOC (and our offices) moved to BBN's building 1.  After
> the move, the NOC was much larger, managed more networks and had windows to
> the hallway that allowed visitors to look in at what was going on.
>
> At about the time of that move, I remember people talking about the "ARPANET
> NOC" as being the one in the lab, while the "Internet NOC" was (if I
> remember correctly) in Eric Rosen's office.  Soon after that, the terminals
> and displays monitoring the Internet gateways moved into a corner of the NOC
> proper along with the ARPANET monitoring.
>
> I'm not sure if this "Internet NOC" existed before 1 January 1983, but it
> very well might have.  I'll bet Eric Rosen or Bob Hinden could say so more
> definitively.  If there was an "Internet NOC" monitoring the Internet
> gateways before January 1983, I would argue that at that point The Internet
> did exist, even if the ARPANET was not yet connected to it via TCP/IP.
>
>                       --Jim Dempsey--
>                         jjd at jjd.com
>