From jeanjour at comcast.net Tue Mar 1 04:06:44 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:06:44 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: <20110301052350.87A4018C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20110301052350.87A4018C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: At 0:23 -0500 2011/03/01, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Dave Walden > > > I can't look up what ARPA's call for bids (RFQ) to develop the ARPANET > > IMP's specified. > > ... > > .. the packet-subnet of IMPs broke these messages into about 1,000 bit > > packets with the last packet in a message being possibly being shorter > > than a full 1,000 bits. > >I'm also too lazy to go check the RFQ or the BBN proposal, but I did look at >the Heart et al paper, and although it doesn't _explicitly_ say that the IMPs >used shorter packets, and give the details on how, there are a lot of things >that implicitly say so, e.g.: > >"a line fully loaded with short packets will require more computation than a >line with all long packets ... a line will typically carr a variety of >different length packets" (pg. 564) > > Noel From jeanjour at comcast.net Tue Mar 1 04:06:50 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:06:50 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4d6c7a76.8705ec0a.636a.ffffcee9@mx.google.com> Message-ID: At 0:06 -0500 2011/03/01, Vint Cerf wrote: >correct, dave > > >On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 11:47 PM, Dave Walden ><dave.walden.family at gmail.com> >wrote: > >At 07:50 PM 2/28/2011, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was in the > >ARPANet.For the ARPANET: > > Frank Heart, Robert Kahn, Severo Ornstein, William Crowther, David Walden, > The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network (1970 Spring > Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS Proc. Vol. 36, pp. 551.567, 1970) > > >Hi, > > >I'm not close to home right now, so I can't look up what ARPA's call >for bids (RFQ) to develop the ARPANET IMP's specified. I sort of >feel that it already specified that the host computers could send >messages that were variable length up to about 8,000 bits, and the >packet-subnet of IMPs broke these messages into about 1,000 bit >packets with the last packet in a message being possibly being >shorter than a full 1,000 bits. Anyway, that's the way, as I >remember, that we initially implemented it in the IMPs. I do >remember that there was a preconception of bi-modal message traffic >with file transfers being broken into 8,000 bit messages, and >interactive terminal traffic being messages of only 10s or 100s of >bits, i.e., one packet or less. I also think I remember that the (I >think 24-bit) CRC on inter-IMP packets was calculated to have the >desired error detection rate based on 1,000 bit packets. > >Dave > > > >-- >home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537; home ph=<>508-888-7655; >Portland ph = <>971-279-2173; cell ph = <>503-757-3137; Sara cell ph >= <>508-280-0446 >email address: > dave at walden-family.com; website(s): > http://www.walden-family.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeanjour at comcast.net Tue Mar 1 04:25:31 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:25:31 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Undoubtedly, this is correct. But it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. Sending fixed length packets would be more work (or as much work) as sending variable length ones! In both cases, you need a length to indicate how much data is there. But in the fixed length case you have to send more bits than you need and fill out the packet with zeros. Wastes bandwidth and is more work. Not a lot more, but in those days one saved everyplace you could! The historians should remember that for engineers, Laziness is a virtue! ;-) Not everything that looks like a major insight to the historians was. Much of it was just common sense. Anyone who went to build it would have done the same thing. Baran's emphasis was that data was not voice. Voice networks send streams of fixed length frames, e.g. T-1, because they are continuously sampling sound. Data is going to be very different. At 22:50 -0500 2011/02/28, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Stephen Suryaputra > > > Any pointer or reasons why the packet becomes variable length later on? > >I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was in the >ARPANet. (Which was pretty much the first general packet network I know of - >were they any proprietary things before that, does anyone know?) > >The first variable length data items transmitted between compturers (although >I would tend to doubt they thought of them as packets) might be hard to track >down. > >It might have been some of the early computer-computer experiments, e.g. the >kind of thing Larry Roberts did at Lincoln Labs (which definitely had variable >length messages); another early system that might have had variable length >data items was SAGE (since that also had computer-computer links between >centers, although I don't know offhand of a source that talks about that level >of detail on the communication aspects of SAGE). > > > > A reference would be really appreciated. > >For Larry Roberts' work: > > Thomas Marill, Lawrence G. Roberts, "Toward A Cooperative Network Of > Time-Shared Computers", Fall AFIPS Conference, October 1966 > >For the ARPANET: > > Frank Heart, Robert Kahn, Severo Ornstein, William Crowther, David Walden, > The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network (1970 Spring > Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS Proc. Vol. 36, pp. 551.567, 1970) > >For SAGE, although there are a number of things about it, for instance the one >listed here: > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi_Automatic_Ground_Environment#Further_reading > >Like I said, I don't know of anything there that goes into a lot of technical >detail on the communication stuff, though. (I looked through a couple, >including the 'Annals of the History of Computing' issue.) In particular, >there's a rumor that SAGE had the first email, but the communication part of >the system especially is so poorly documented in the open literature I've >never been able to track that down. There is a fair amount on the AN/FSQ-7 >computer, and some on the programming, but the whole communication aspect >(other than the early radar data transmission) is seemingly not covered >anywhere. > > Noel From galmes at tamu.edu Tue Mar 1 06:06:45 2011 From: galmes at tamu.edu (Guy Almes) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:06:45 -0600 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4D6CFD75.4050806@tamu.edu> John et al., Hmm. This note invites anyone with experience on the Cambridge ring to chime in. -- Guy On 3/1/11 6:25 AM, John Day wrote: > Undoubtedly, this is correct. > > But it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was > probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. > > Sending fixed length packets would be more work (or as much work) as > sending variable length ones! In both cases, you need a length to > indicate how much data is there. But in the fixed length case you have > to send more bits than you need and fill out the packet with zeros. > > Wastes bandwidth and is more work. Not a lot more, but in those days one > saved everyplace you could! > > The historians should remember that for engineers, Laziness is a virtue! > ;-) Not everything that looks like a major insight to the historians > was. Much of it was just common sense. > > Anyone who went to build it would have done the same thing. > > Baran's emphasis was that data was not voice. Voice networks send > streams of fixed length frames, e.g. T-1, because they are continuously > sampling sound. Data is going to be very different. > > At 22:50 -0500 2011/02/28, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Stephen Suryaputra >> >> > Any pointer or reasons why the packet becomes variable length later on? >> >> I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was >> in the >> ARPANet. (Which was pretty much the first general packet network I >> know of - >> were they any proprietary things before that, does anyone know?) >> >> The first variable length data items transmitted between compturers >> (although >> I would tend to doubt they thought of them as packets) might be hard >> to track >> down. >> >> It might have been some of the early computer-computer experiments, >> e.g. the >> kind of thing Larry Roberts did at Lincoln Labs (which definitely had >> variable >> length messages); another early system that might have had variable >> length >> data items was SAGE (since that also had computer-computer links between >> centers, although I don't know offhand of a source that talks about >> that level >> of detail on the communication aspects of SAGE). >> >> >> > A reference would be really appreciated. >> >> For Larry Roberts' work: >> >> Thomas Marill, Lawrence G. Roberts, "Toward A Cooperative Network Of >> Time-Shared Computers", Fall AFIPS Conference, October 1966 >> >> For the ARPANET: >> >> Frank Heart, Robert Kahn, Severo Ornstein, William Crowther, David >> Walden, >> The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network (1970 >> Spring >> Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS Proc. Vol. 36, pp. 551.567, 1970) >> >> For SAGE, although there are a number of things about it, for instance >> the one >> listed here: >> >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi_Automatic_Ground_Environment#Further_reading >> >> >> Like I said, I don't know of anything there that goes into a lot of >> technical >> detail on the communication stuff, though. (I looked through a couple, >> including the 'Annals of the History of Computing' issue.) In particular, >> there's a rumor that SAGE had the first email, but the communication >> part of >> the system especially is so poorly documented in the open literature I've >> never been able to track that down. There is a fair amount on the >> AN/FSQ-7 >> computer, and some on the programming, but the whole communication aspect >> (other than the early radar data transmission) is seemingly not covered >> anywhere. >> >> Noel > > From nigel at channelisles.net Tue Mar 1 06:19:11 2011 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:19:11 +0000 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in the early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early 80s following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering and protocols only. Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence of the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions? From vint at google.com Tue Mar 1 06:29:32 2011 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 09:29:32 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: anybody for ATM? :-) v On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 7:25 AM, John Day wrote: > Undoubtedly, this is correct. > > But it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was > probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. > > Sending fixed length packets would be more work (or as much work) as > sending variable length ones! In both cases, you need a length to indicate > how much data is there. But in the fixed length case you have to send more > bits than you need and fill out the packet with zeros. > > Wastes bandwidth and is more work. Not a lot more, but in those days one > saved everyplace you could! > > The historians should remember that for engineers, Laziness is a virtue! > ;-) Not everything that looks like a major insight to the historians was. > Much of it was just common sense. > > Anyone who went to build it would have done the same thing. > > Baran's emphasis was that data was not voice. Voice networks send streams > of fixed length frames, e.g. T-1, because they are continuously sampling > sound. Data is going to be very different. > > > At 22:50 -0500 2011/02/28, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >> > From: Stephen Suryaputra >> >> > Any pointer or reasons why the packet becomes variable length later >> on? >> >> I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was in >> the >> ARPANet. (Which was pretty much the first general packet network I know of >> - >> were they any proprietary things before that, does anyone know?) >> >> The first variable length data items transmitted between compturers >> (although >> I would tend to doubt they thought of them as packets) might be hard to >> track >> down. >> >> It might have been some of the early computer-computer experiments, e.g. >> the >> kind of thing Larry Roberts did at Lincoln Labs (which definitely had >> variable >> length messages); another early system that might have had variable length >> data items was SAGE (since that also had computer-computer links between >> centers, although I don't know offhand of a source that talks about that >> level >> of detail on the communication aspects of SAGE). >> >> >> > A reference would be really appreciated. >> >> For Larry Roberts' work: >> >> Thomas Marill, Lawrence G. Roberts, "Toward A Cooperative Network Of >> Time-Shared Computers", Fall AFIPS Conference, October 1966 >> >> For the ARPANET: >> >> Frank Heart, Robert Kahn, Severo Ornstein, William Crowther, David >> Walden, >> The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network (1970 >> Spring >> Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS Proc. Vol. 36, pp. 551.567, 1970) >> >> For SAGE, although there are a number of things about it, for instance the >> one >> listed here: >> >> >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi_Automatic_Ground_Environment#Further_reading >> >> Like I said, I don't know of anything there that goes into a lot of >> technical >> detail on the communication stuff, though. (I looked through a couple, >> including the 'Annals of the History of Computing' issue.) In particular, >> there's a rumor that SAGE had the first email, but the communication part >> of >> the system especially is so poorly documented in the open literature I've >> never been able to track that down. There is a fair amount on the AN/FSQ-7 >> computer, and some on the programming, but the whole communication aspect >> (other than the early radar data transmission) is seemingly not covered >> anywhere. >> >> Noel >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From craig at aland.bbn.com Tue Mar 1 06:36:06 2011 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:36:06 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA Message-ID: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> Much of it is documented in the RFC series. Informally, the IANA came into existence around 1972, e.g. RFC 317 (1972) shows Jon Postel acting as numbers coordinator. The first "Assigned Numbers" RFC appears to be RFC 717 of July 1976. As to when this role was renamed "IANA", I don't know. The first time I could find refering to an IANA instead of "Jon" or "Joyce" was RFC 1060 (March 1990). There's a three year gap from RFC 1010 (which still says "Joyce"). Obviously just a starting point -- my guess is the IANA term developed pretty early but I have no proof. When I arrived in 1983 the wisdom was simply, "ask Joyce or Jon for a number". But there may well have been a DARPA (sub)contract entitled "numbers authority". Thanks! Craig > On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the > Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in the > early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early 80s > following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering and > protocols only. > > Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence of > the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions? > ******************** Craig Partridge Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com Phone: +1 517 324 3425 From bortzmeyer at nic.fr Tue Mar 1 06:38:10 2011 From: bortzmeyer at nic.fr (Stephane Bortzmeyer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 15:38:10 +0100 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <20110301143810.GA29877@nic.fr> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 02:19:11PM +0000, Nigel Roberts wrote a message of 9 lines which said: > On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the > Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in > the early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early > 80s following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering > and protocols only. > > Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence > of the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions? Naming != DNS. There was a standard naming activity a long time before the DNS, even if it was not under IANA's name. The first one was may be RFC 235 For a synthesis, see From el at lisse.NA Tue Mar 1 06:48:21 2011 From: el at lisse.NA (Dr Eberhard Lisse) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:48:21 +0200 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> Message-ID: <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O el on 2011-03-01 16:36 Craig Partridge said the following: > Much of it is documented in the RFC series. > > Informally, the IANA came into existence around 1972, e.g. > RFC 317 (1972) shows Jon Postel acting as numbers coordinator. > The first "Assigned Numbers" RFC appears to be RFC 717 of July 1976. > > As to when this role was renamed "IANA", I don't know. The first time I > could find refering to an IANA instead of "Jon" or "Joyce" was RFC 1060 > (March 1990). There's a three year gap from RFC 1010 (which still > says "Joyce"). > > Obviously just a starting point -- my guess is the IANA term developed > pretty early but I have no proof. When I arrived in 1983 the wisdom was > simply, "ask Joyce or Jon for a number". But there may well have been > a DARPA (sub)contract entitled "numbers authority". > > Thanks! > > Craig -- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (Saar) el at lisse.NA el108-ARIN / * | Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell) PO Box 8421 \ / Please do NOT email to this address Bachbrecht, Namibia ;____/ if it is DNS related in ANY way From craig at aland.bbn.com Tue Mar 1 06:53:53 2011 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:53:53 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets Message-ID: <20110301145353.E819228E139@aland.bbn.com> > Sending fixed length packets would be more work (or as much work) as > sending variable length ones! In both cases, you need a length to > indicate how much data is there. But in the fixed length case you > have to send more bits than you need and fill out the packet with > zeros. > > Wastes bandwidth and is more work. Not a lot more, but in those days > one saved everyplace you could! Hi John: Have to disagree with you a little bit. If you're looking at the fixed vs. variable packet issue architecturally you swiftly hit the following observations: 1. The data being sent is variable in size 2. Fixed sized data units on the line cause some wastage (amount varies from substantial to minimal depending on how well the variable sized data packets into the fixed-sized data unit). [your point above] 3. Variable sized packets can reduce the packet header overhead by going longer (assuming the data being sent permits). 4. If you have parallel hardware in the interconnect devices, fixed sized data units are far more efficient. Parallelizing variable data units is really unpleasant (cf. patents from George Varghese and me in the late 1990s). Complicating things is that for the fixed sized packet crowd, points 2 and 3 are in conflict. To avoid data wastage you want small fixed size packets, but to avoid overhead wastage you want big fixed size packets. (If you can keep the overhead wastage small -- per some fixed sized packet semi-distributed LAN technologies, things look better). The ARPANET had no parallelism in the connection points -- it was running over a shared bus in the IMPs. So you obviously pick variable sized packets. A further driver is that the links costs far more than the interconnect, so the efficiency of variable sized was important. When, later, speed requirements pushed us to build parallel backplanes in routers, we hit the variable vs. fixed issue again (the great ATM battle of the early 1990s). One thing that saved us was the realization that what we did inside the routers (namely break those variable packets into fixed data units to move the data between interfaces) had little to do with what we put on the wire (variable sized packets). [What made this step a realization as opposed to a "no duh" moment was that it meant inefficiencies inside the router/switch as you converted to fixed-sized -- you had to run the backplane faster than the network links and at a time you were straining for speed, that felt wrong. That led to folks arguing for ATM -- which was, effectively, externalizing the innards of the switch. (In retrospect, a bad idea but very appealing at the time). We had to really optimize the router innards to convince folks.] Thanks! Craig From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Mar 1 06:54:37 2011 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 09:54:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets Message-ID: <20110301145437.6156018C0F3@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: John Day > it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was > probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. > ... > in the fixed length case you have to send more bits than you need and > fill out the packet with zeros. > Wastes bandwidth ... in those days one saved everyplace you could! > ... > Not everything that looks like a major insight to the historians was. > Much of it was just common sense. > Anyone who went to build it would have done the same thing. Exactly. > From: Guy Almes > This note invites anyone with experience on the Cambridge ring to chime > in. I'm too lazy to go dig up the papers, but IIRC it had very small 'slots' (rather like ATM cells,, but even smaller), so the amount of 'breakage' from unused space at the back of the last slot of a packet was tiny. In the context of a ring, small fixed-sized slots makes some sense, because otherwise you have to have either i) a token-based ring (and then you have to have logic for finding the token, creating a new token when it gets damaged and/or lost, etc, etc), or ii) a contention ring (and then you have to have logic for dealing with collisions). Of course, slots also allowed you to have priorities, and high-priority traffic could be mixed into the middle of low-priority, reducing channel access queueing delays (not sure if the Cambridge ring did that). (Further mumblage about clock synchronization, an issue in token/contention rings, etc, etc left out.) In short, a high-speed ring is a very specialized environment, and it made some sense to do things somewhat unusualy. But note that even there, the user interface allowed for variable-length packets, as the bimodal distribution of data traffic was by then pretty well understood. Noel From nigel at channelisles.net Tue Mar 1 07:06:29 2011 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:06:29 +0000 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> Message-ID: <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> On 01/03/11 14:48, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote: > I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O > > el If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an important historical artefact. From cls at rkey.com Tue Mar 1 07:07:51 2011 From: cls at rkey.com (Craig Simon) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:07:51 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <4D6D0BC7.4020803@rkey.com> RFC 204 "Sockets in use" struck me as the threshold event in Postel's role as IANA, well before the name was in use. RFC 1174 figures highly in the declaration of IANAs's status. I covered that at length in my Ph.D. dissertation, which I recently discovered is now on Scribd at http://www.scribd.com/doc/45142013/ . Craig Simon On 3/1/11 9:19 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the > Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in the > early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early 80s > following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering and > protocols only. > > Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence of > the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions? > > > From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 07:09:17 2011 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave.walden.family at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:09:17 -0800 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Mar 1, 2011, at 4:25 AM, John Day wrote > But it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. > It certainly seemed obvious given we were implementing it primarily in software. I can imagine that when Baran wrote his paper he was thinking about an all hardware implementation. I can also imagine that in those pre ARPANET days they were thinking about some much less flexible multiplexing approaches. My impression (maybe stated in Larry Roberts' paper where the Heart et al.paper was presented) was that the ARPANET could happen when it did because the economics and technology of general purpose computers and communications circuits had reached appropriate crossover points. That let packet switching (e.g., by having variable size packets, leased circuits, dynamic routing, store-and-forward by IMPs, etc.) provide an approximation of good performance for bulk transfers (which previously had been the specialty of message switching -- open the circuit when you have enough traffic to keep it busy for a while and then close the circuit) and an approximation of highly interactive communication (which had previously used circuit switching -- open the circuit and keep it open until you are done talking back and forth). The early voice experiments over the ARPANET required the "raw packets" capability of the IMPs to be enabled which forgot about reliable (more or less), ordered transmission of messages of packets across the net ( which slowed up speech too much) and delivered single packets in whatever order they got to the destination IMP. At least this is how I remember it. John Makhoul would remember more. (Unfortunately Jim Forgie died recently.) >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 07:22:12 2011 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave.walden.family at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:22:12 -0800 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: <20110301052350.87A4018C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20110301052350.87A4018C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <399A4295-4BF0-42E1-B0A1-E4D0184C171E@gmail.com> When we wrote the proposal to do the IMP development job, we wrote the inner loop of the program and calculated how many packets per second an IMP could process, e.g., service a packet-arrived interrupt, lookup the next IMP on the route, queue the packet for output, and do the output instructions and the time for the hardware to take the packet out of memory, etc. I am sure we did this for short as well as for full length packets. I suspect these performance predictions were noted in the bid evaluation process at ARPA. On Feb 28, 2011, at 9:23 PM, jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) wrote: >> From: Dave Walden > >> I can't look up what ARPA's call for bids (RFQ) to develop the ARPANET >> IMP's specified. >> ... >> .. the packet-subnet of IMPs broke these messages into about 1,000 bit >> packets with the last packet in a message being possibly being shorter >> than a full 1,000 bits. > > I'm also too lazy to go check the RFQ or the BBN proposal, but I did look at > the Heart et al paper, and although it doesn't _explicitly_ say that the IMPs > used shorter packets, and give the details on how, there are a lot of things > that implicitly say so, e.g.: > > "a line fully loaded with short packets will require more computation than a > line with all long packets ... a line will typically carr a variety of > different length packets" (pg. 564) > > Noel From randy at psg.com Tue Mar 1 07:28:18 2011 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:28:18 +0900 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: > If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an > important historical artefact. there most definitely was. and indeed it would be if it had not been stolen off his desk early on the morning after he died. randy From vint at google.com Tue Mar 1 07:34:40 2011 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 10:34:40 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: there was indeed a notebook esp for IP address assignment. It is not clear where it has ended up however. On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 10:06 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > On 01/03/11 14:48, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote: > > I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O > > > > el > > If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an > important historical artefact. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cls at rkey.com Tue Mar 1 07:36:47 2011 From: cls at rkey.com (Craig Simon) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:36:47 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <4D6D128F.8090109@rkey.com> According to my research, prior to Postel taking responsibility, Alex McKenzie at BBN had been updating the host table numbers, and Bob Kahn was maintaining some other lists on a stack of index cards he carried in his shirt pocket. On 3/1/11 10:06 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an > important historical artefact. > From jeanjour at comcast.net Tue Mar 1 07:47:22 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 10:47:22 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4D6D005F.2020900@channelisles.net> Message-ID: it actually goes back to the NIC, doesn't it? Jake? At 14:19 +0000 2011/03/01, Nigel Roberts wrote: >On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the >Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in >the early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early >80s following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering >and protocols only. > >Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence >of the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions? From jeanjour at comcast.net Tue Mar 1 07:46:26 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 10:46:26 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: That was amusing. Another of ITU's attempts to do circuit switching as packet switching. At 9:29 -0500 2011/03/01, Vint Cerf wrote: >anybody for ATM? :-) > >v > > >On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 7:25 AM, John Day ><jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote: > >Undoubtedly, this is correct. > >But it also occurred to me that this was not such a big deal and was >probably discovered by everyone who went to build one. > >Sending fixed length packets would be more work (or as much work) as >sending variable length ones! In both cases, you need a length to >indicate how much data is there. But in the fixed length case you >have to send more bits than you need and fill out the packet with >zeros. > >Wastes bandwidth and is more work. Not a lot more, but in those days >one saved everyplace you could! > >The historians should remember that for engineers, Laziness is a >virtue! ;-) Not everything that looks like a major insight to the >historians was. Much of it was just common sense. > >Anyone who went to build it would have done the same thing. > >Baran's emphasis was that data was not voice. Voice networks send >streams of fixed length frames, e.g. T-1, because they are >continuously sampling sound. Data is going to be very different. > > >At 22:50 -0500 2011/02/28, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > > From: Stephen Suryaputra <ssurya at ieee.org> > > > Any pointer or reasons why the packet becomes variable length later on? > >I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was in the >ARPANet. (Which was pretty much the first general packet network I know of - >were they any proprietary things before that, does anyone know?) > >The first variable length data items transmitted between compturers (although >I would tend to doubt they thought of them as packets) might be hard to track >down. > >It might have been some of the early computer-computer experiments, e.g. the >kind of thing Larry Roberts did at Lincoln Labs (which definitely had variable >length messages); another early system that might have had variable length >data items was SAGE (since that also had computer-computer links between >centers, although I don't know offhand of a source that talks about that level >of detail on the communication aspects of SAGE). > > > > A reference would be really appreciated. > >For Larry Roberts' work: > > Thomas Marill, Lawrence G. Roberts, "Toward A Cooperative Network Of > Time-Shared Computers", Fall AFIPS Conference, October 1966 > >For the ARPANET: > > Frank Heart, Robert Kahn, Severo Ornstein, William Crowther, David Walden, > The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network (1970 Spring > Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS Proc. Vol. 36, pp. 551.567, 1970) > >For SAGE, although there are a number of things about it, for instance the one >listed here: > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi_Automatic_Ground_Environment#Further_reading > >Like I said, I don't know of anything there that goes into a lot of technical >detail on the communication stuff, though. (I looked through a couple, >including the 'Annals of the History of Computing' issue.) In particular, >there's a rumor that SAGE had the first email, but the communication part of >the system especially is so poorly documented in the open literature I've >never been able to track that down. There is a fair amount on the AN/FSQ-7 >computer, and some on the programming, but the whole communication aspect >(other than the early radar data transmission) is seemingly not covered >anywhere. > > Noel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric.gade at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 09:12:02 2011 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 17:12:02 +0000 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: Postel's archives materials at USC are, unfortunately, still not public. This is because the university feels that there may be sensitive information about finances, etc. They will be released after a time that is "archivally appropriate," so I've been told. On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > On 01/03/11 14:48, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote: > > I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O > > > > el > > If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an > important historical artefact. > -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Tue Mar 1 09:29:07 2011 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:29:07 -0500 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4D6D2CE3.3060909@meetinghouse.net> *Noel Chiappa* jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: > > From: Stephen Suryaputra> > > > Any pointer or reasons why the packet becomes variable length later on? > > I would assume/guess that the first well-known and wide-scale use was in the > ARPANet. (Which was pretty much the first general packet network I know of - > were they any proprietary things before that, does anyone know?) > > The first variable length data items transmitted between compturers (although > I would tend to doubt they thought of them as packets) might be hard to track > down. > > It might have been some of the early computer-computer experiments, e.g. the > kind of thing Larry Roberts did at Lincoln Labs (which definitely had variable > length messages); another early system that might have had variable length > data items was SAGE (since that also had computer-computer links between > centers, although I don't know offhand of a source that talks about that level > of detail on the communication aspects of SAGE). > IBM BISYNC predated ARPANET (1967 I think), and probably falls into "well-known and wide-scale use," at least for its day. It wasn't quite a packet protocol, but it was used on multi-drop links - so it dealt with addressing, link access control (master-slave controller I think), and such. It was variable length, but accomplished by trailing "completion codes" rather than encoding the number of bytes-to-follow in a header. I expect Burroughs, Honneywell, and the other Seven Dwarfs had something comparable in the same time frame. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From vint at google.com Tue Mar 1 09:36:00 2011 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 12:36:00 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: we need to do something about that. v On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > Postel's archives materials at USC are, unfortunately, still not public. > This is because the university feels that there may be sensitive > information about finances, etc. They will be released after a time that is > "archivally appropriate," so I've been told. > > > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > >> On 01/03/11 14:48, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote: >> > I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O >> > >> > el >> >> If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an >> important historical artefact. >> > > > > -- > Eric > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jcurran at istaff.org Tue Mar 1 09:58:07 2011 From: jcurran at istaff.org (John Curran) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 12:58:07 -0500 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <9496D0FF-39D2-406F-81A7-7E45CC159C85@istaff.org> On Mar 1, 2011, at 12:12 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > Postel's archives materials at USC are, unfortunately, still not public. This is because the university feels that there may be sensitive information about finances, etc. They will be released after a time that is "archivally appropriate," so I've been told. ARIN has some copies of the materials that were deemed registry-relevant (passed along via our SRI->GSI->NSI->ARIN origin), but until the materials are released there is no way of knowing if the materials are anywhere near complete. /John From woolf at isc.org Tue Mar 1 10:42:15 2011 From: woolf at isc.org (Suzanne Woolf) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 18:42:15 +0000 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> Message-ID: <20110301184214.GA94371@bikeshed.isc.org> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 09:36:06AM -0500, Craig Partridge wrote: > As to when this role was renamed "IANA", I don't know. The first time I > could find refering to an IANA instead of "Jon" or "Joyce" was RFC 1060 > (March 1990). There's a three year gap from RFC 1010 (which still > says "Joyce"). I started working at ISI in 1989, and "IANA" was established by then as the term for the operation at ISI that gave address (still often called "Class A") blocks to the three RIRs, oversaw changes to TLD nameservers and whois data (with Network Solutions as "InterNIC" actually generating the DNS root zone file, which caused no end of trouble later), and kept protocol parameters records for the IETF. I was doing unix and DEC20 systems support then, and was told early on that if people said they needed something for IANA, it was important. I believe I first saw the term in contract language some years later, when I joined the Networking group and booked most of my time against the same DARPA contract that funded IANA, administration of .US, the RFC Editor, and a bunch of other random and possibly-useful things, including my participation at my first-ever IETF under a catch-all that Jon told me I should think of as "do good things for the Internet"-- one of the cool things he did that people don't generally know about was encourage (young, then!) people who thought this networking stuff was unbelievably powerful and fun to go figure out how to make their own contribution. As to exactly when the term "IANA" was blessed by (D)ARPA as the description of the associated functions, I don't know. Mike St. Johns might, or his contemporaries in (D)ARPA-ISTO. Suz From adrian.j.hooke at jpl.nasa.gov Tue Mar 1 14:41:36 2011 From: adrian.j.hooke at jpl.nasa.gov (Hooke, Adrian J (9000)) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 14:41:36 -0800 Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4d6c7a76.8705ec0a.636a.ffffcee9@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <6D12692A7874434DAC51C93B019D4349EF9F14FE86@ALTPHYEMBEVSP20.RES.AD.JPL> Although a bit off-topic, if anyone is interested in the history of the Interplanetary Internet there is a parallel. In the early days of the space program, data were transmitted to/from remote tracking stations and mission control facilities using a ground communications network called NASCOM: http://tmo.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report2/42-36/36B.PDF. NASCOM used fixed length blocks; I think that they started off at 836 bits and later migrated to 1200 and then to 4800 bit blocks. The system architecture was basically that the spacecraft telemetry and telecommand bit-streams were tunneled over NASCOM during their ground transit. During the 1971 Mariner 9 mission to orbit Mars, we discovered that one of the scientific instruments was never getting a complete data set. After a lot of digging though data dumps we realized that if NASCOM operated at its specified block loss rate then it was guaranteed that there would be a hole in that user's data. After thinking about the problem, Ed Greenberg and I at JPL proposed the "Block Telemetry" concept (attached) in which a fixed length block of data from each instrument would be inserted into a fixed-length telemetry frame and transmitted to the ground. At the ground station the frames would be synchronized and placed 1:1 into the data field of a fixed length NASCOM block. That way, a missing NASCOM block would only hit one user. This system was flown on the SEASAT-A spacecraft in 1978. Meanwhile, Greenberg and I discovered that Ed Greene at NASA Goddard was thinking along similar lines and in 1976 we started collaborating. About that time we also learned that a young whippersnapper named Cerf was messing around with packetized data transfer and it became clear that we would be much better served by moving from fixed length blocks of user data to variable length packets. The concepts of "Packet Telemetry" and "Packet Telecommand" soon followed; they are now the basis for space/ground communications on well over 500 spacecraft across the international community: http://public.ccsds.org/about/history.aspx Now those same packet protocols will provide the space link underpinnings for the DTN protocol that a somewhat older whippersnapper called Cerf is promoting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet ///adrian Adrian J. Hooke Manager: Space Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) Project Space Communications and Navigation Office (SCaN) Space Operations Mission Directorate NASA Headquarters Washington DC 20024-3210 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Block TLM.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 881711 bytes Desc: Block TLM.pdf URL: From casner at acm.org Tue Mar 1 23:52:37 2011 From: casner at acm.org (Stephen Casner) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 23:52:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ih] The origin of variable length packets In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 1 Mar 2011, dave.walden.family at gmail.com wrote: > The early voice experiments over the ARPANET required the "raw > packets" capability of the IMPs to be enabled which forgot about > reliable (more or less), ordered transmission of messages of packets > across the net ( which slowed up speech too much) and delivered > single packets in whatever order they got to the destination IMP. > At least this is how I remember it. John Makhoul would remember > more. That description is accurate. Much of the time the packet voice systems sent packets of constant size, although the size was adjustable by varying the amount of time each was to hold. (I remember running some experiments varying the packet size to see if there was an optimum.) Later a variable-rate encoding algorithm was developed, so then the packet size would have varied even at a constant packet rate. > (Unfortunately Jim Forgie died recently.) Sorry to hear that. He was a good guy. -- Steve From rogers at isi.edu Thu Mar 3 18:38:22 2011 From: rogers at isi.edu (Craig Milo Rogers) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 18:38:22 -0800 Subject: [ih] Michael Padlipsky Message-ID: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> Michael Padlipsky, author of "The Elements of Networking Style", builder of the Multics networking stack, FTP protocol designer, author of RFC 666 (among others), and noted field researcher in the domain of Single Malt Whisky, passed away this morning. He will be missed. Craig Milo Rogers From vint at google.com Fri Mar 4 01:56:43 2011 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 04:56:43 -0500 Subject: [ih] Michael Padlipsky In-Reply-To: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> References: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> Message-ID: One of the truly memorable characters in the history of ARPANET. Craig is right - between the Single Malts and non-smoking tobacco, to say nothing of being the man who quoted John Donne in the middle of a protocol design debate (!), Mike was one of a kind. I am sorry to learn of his death - he now joins Jon in the Old Boys Club in the sky. vint On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Craig Milo Rogers wrote: > Michael Padlipsky, author of "The Elements of Networking > Style", builder of the Multics networking stack, FTP protocol > designer, author of RFC 666 (among others), and noted field researcher > in the domain of Single Malt Whisky, passed away this morning. He will > be missed. > > Craig Milo Rogers > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bob.hinden at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 07:20:34 2011 From: bob.hinden at gmail.com (Bob Hinden) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:20:34 +0200 Subject: [ih] Michael Padlipsky In-Reply-To: References: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> Message-ID: <3811189B-4265-442E-B8B5-84A31A62A1B7@gmail.com> I agree, sad news. Bob On Mar 4, 2011, at 11:56 AM, Vint Cerf wrote: > One of the truly memorable characters in the history of ARPANET. Craig is right - between the Single Malts and non-smoking tobacco, to say nothing of being the man who quoted John Donne in the middle of a protocol design debate (!), Mike was one of a kind. > > I am sorry to learn of his death - he now joins Jon in the Old Boys Club in the sky. > > vint > > > > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Craig Milo Rogers wrote: > Michael Padlipsky, author of "The Elements of Networking > Style", builder of the Multics networking stack, FTP protocol > designer, author of RFC 666 (among others), and noted field researcher > in the domain of Single Malt Whisky, passed away this morning. He will > be missed. > > Craig Milo Rogers > From vint at google.com Fri Mar 4 11:43:57 2011 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 14:43:57 -0500 Subject: [ih] how can we put doug gale on this mailing list?? Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nfonseca at ic.unicamp.br Fri Mar 4 12:13:33 2011 From: nfonseca at ic.unicamp.br (nfonseca at ic.unicamp.br) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:13:33 -0300 (BRT) Subject: [ih] how can we put doug gale on this mailing list?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here is the link for subscription http://www.postel.org/internet-history/ nelson > > From bernie at fantasyfarm.com Fri Mar 4 12:38:55 2011 From: bernie at fantasyfarm.com (Bernie Cosell) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:38:55 -0500 Subject: [ih] how can we put doug gale on this mailing list?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D714DDF.31917.2AF49B85@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Two things, First, I believe the only answer to that is "we" can't -- these days a person needs to apply directly to get on a mailing list [to ensure that the person actually *wants* to be on the list and to prevent spammers from auto-subscribing thousands of unwilling folk automatically, etc] Second, I don't know if it works or not, but every message to the list includes the header: List-Subscribe: , My guess is that if Doug sends that request to the hist-req address'll get signed up. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From jklensin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 13:22:36 2011 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 16:22:36 -0500 Subject: [ih] Michael Padlipsky In-Reply-To: References: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> Message-ID: Really sorry to hear this. He, and his personal style and insights, will certainly be missed. I managed to bring him briefly out of retirement a few years ago to work on what because RFC 5198 and it was fully as much of a pleasure as I remember from working with him in the 60s and 70s. john From jklensin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 13:46:29 2011 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 16:46:29 -0500 Subject: [ih] NIC, InterNIC, and Modelling Administration In-Reply-To: <201102181331.p1IDVvRB078672@bartok.nlnetlabs.nl> References: <20110217203757.636D928E137@aland.bbn.com> <201102181107.p1IB7YGL072623@bartok.nlnetlabs.nl> <201102181331.p1IDVvRB078672@bartok.nlnetlabs.nl> Message-ID: On 2/18/11, Jaap Akkerhuis wrote: > > Just out of curiosity could some explain how the UN got involved > with ISO 3316? > > The connection is not obvious to me. > > In short, the connection is defined in ISO 3166 itself. For new > country, the Statistical Bureau of the UN in New York asks for it > when they need it for statistical purposes. The ISO 3166 Maintenance > Agency then allocates a two and three alpha code according to the > rules in ISO 3166. Sorry for not getting back to this before now. A little history may be helpful. In some respects, the UN was there first, with the Statistical Bureau (which has had several names) registering official country names for UN member states and assigning the three-digit codes. There may have been UN-assigned alphabetic codes at one stage too -- I don't remember if indeed I ever knew. The "member states" restriction caused a problem, because there were lots of territories, protectorates, non-member states, and other "entities" out there that were important for coding for some purpose, with commerce, shipping, and postal activities being high on the list. So ISO (TC46) developed 3166 with a reciprocal agreement with the UN Statistical Bureau: the UN could assign a name and numeric code and then ask/tell the 3166 folks to put the entity in the database and assign the alpha codes as Jaap indicates. Or the 3166 Registration Authority (early) / Maintenance Agency (later) could accept an application from an entity, using criteria specified in the Standard, put English and French names into the database, assign the alpha codes, ask the UN whether it wanted to assign a numeric code, and put the code into the database when it got it back. In the middle of the last decade, after an incident involving what 3166/MA considered an abusive use of the Standard with a high likelihood of more to come (sadly, the abuse came from the direction of ICANN), and noticing that the number of new territories, protectorates, and other non-country entities not recognized by the UN and not already registered was declining to near-zero, 3166/MA adopted a policy that was intended to make registration directly with them (rather than via the UN) nearly impossible. There has been a subsequent update to the Standard itself that tuned the policy a bit but didn't change its nature -- it would take a really exceptional circumstance for a new entity to register in the 3166 database without going through the UN. And that brought the situation to that which Jaap describes in his note. john From jeanjour at comcast.net Fri Mar 4 14:37:47 2011 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:37:47 -0500 Subject: [ih] Michael Padlipsky In-Reply-To: References: <20110304023822.GD320@isi.edu> Message-ID: I was reminded today that there are two classics to remember Michael by: Ritual for Catharsis No.1 and A Small Plan for the Reform of the Political Process http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/smallplan.html The Monday after the Saturday Night Massacre hand made bumper stickers appeared in Cambridge that said "Impeach the Cox Sacker" Mike made sure I got one. I still have it. ;-) May he rest in peace, but knowing Michael, it is doubtful! Thank goodness! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From larrysheldon at cox.net Fri Mar 4 15:39:44 2011 From: larrysheldon at cox.net (Larry Sheldon) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:39:44 -0600 Subject: [ih] how can we put doug gale on this mailing list?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D717840.9010905@cox.net> On 3/4/2011 1:43 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > > From the header set: , -- Superfluity does not vitiate California Civil Code quote-#3537 Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, your body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming,"Yah hoo! What a ride!" ripped from "GM" Roper http://lwolt.wordpress.com/ http://tinyurl.com/269dspw # <-- Where I live 1 From woodrow at csail.mit.edu Tue Mar 8 23:41:44 2011 From: woodrow at csail.mit.edu (Stephen Woodrow) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 02:41:44 -0500 Subject: [ih] NSFNET/Merit Regional-Techs mailing list archives? Message-ID: Hello, I'm interested in obtaining a copy of the archives of the NSFNET Regional-Techs mailing list that predated NANOG's formation in 1994, and I wanted to check if anyone on this list might know where I should look or who I should talk to in pursuit of this. Merit once hosted the archives on an FTP server alluded to at [1] (the specific URL was [2]), but the URL no longer resolves. I contacted Merit, but they weren't able to help me. These archives also don't seem to have been included in NANOG's transition from Merit to NewNOG, which has led me to ask this list. In sum, if you know someone who might have mirrored the regional-techs list archives at some point in the past, I would appreciate hearing from you. If I am successful in finding the archives, I will pass them on to NANOG for posterity. Thanks, --steve [1] http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/historical.html [2] ftp://ftp.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/regional-techs/ From touch at isi.edu Wed Mar 9 09:01:48 2011 From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:01:48 -0800 Subject: [ih] Very early days of the IANA In-Reply-To: References: <20110301143606.399DD28E137@aland.bbn.com> <4D6D0735.80302@lisse.NA> <4D6D0B75.5070705@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <4D77B27C.7010206@isi.edu> Hi, all, This is correct. I can coordinate access to the public parts of the archive, but the sensitive parts are not available at least partly for the reason below. Joe (Postel Center Director, and manager of this list) On 3/1/2011 9:12 AM, Eric Gade wrote: > Postel's archives materials at USC are, unfortunately, still not public. > This is because the university feels that there may be sensitive > information about finances, etc. They will be released after a time that > is "archivally appropriate," so I've been told. > > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Nigel Roberts > wrote: > > On 01/03/11 14:48, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote: > > I always thought IANA was Latin for "Jon's Notebook" :-)-O > > > > el > > If there really was ever such a (physical) notebook, it would be an > important historical artefact. > > > > > -- > Eric From touch at isi.edu Wed Mar 9 09:07:03 2011 From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:07:03 -0800 Subject: [ih] how can we put doug gale on this mailing list?? In-Reply-To: <4D714DDF.31917.2AF49B85@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> References: <4D714DDF.31917.2AF49B85@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: <4D77B3B7.9040009@isi.edu> Hi, all, On 3/4/2011 12:38 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote: > Two things, First, I believe the only answer to that is "we" can't -- > these days a person needs to apply directly to get on a mailing list [to > ensure that the person actually *wants* to be on the list and to prevent > spammers from auto-subscribing thousands of unwilling folk automatically, > etc] Yes; if you tried, it would just send an invite to the desired posting mail address anyway for confirmation. As list admin, I can put people on this list, but don't for obvious reasons (some noted above). Please do forward the subscription URL wherever useful, though. Joe (as list admin) From touch at isi.edu Wed Mar 9 11:20:07 2011 From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:20:07 -0800 Subject: [ih] some recent large posts to Internet History getting bounced Message-ID: <4D77D2E7.5020704@isi.edu> Hi, all, Some recent posts to this list have been bounced for being too large. The list does not permit posts of large attachments - if you have something of persisting value to the community and can't post it locally, please let me know and I can post it at postel.org Thanks, Joe (list admin) From amckenzie3 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 14 06:21:07 2011 From: amckenzie3 at yahoo.com (Alex McKenzie) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:21:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ih] INWG and the Conception of the Internet Message-ID: <614682.80270.qm@web30608.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Some of you may be interested in an "anecdote" of mine, which was just published in the IEEE Transactions on the History of Computing, titled INWG and the Conception of the Internet; an Eyewitness Account. It is available online at http://alexmckenzie.weebly.com/inwg-and-the-conception-of-the-internet-an-eyewitness-account.html Regards, Alex McKenzie From galmes at tamu.edu Mon Mar 28 07:18:27 2011 From: galmes at tamu.edu (Guy Almes) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:18:27 -0500 Subject: [ih] Paul Baran In-Reply-To: References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4D9098B3.6090903@tamu.edu> A friend made me aware, this morning, of the death of Paul Baran (cf. ). There were many interesting aspects of the NYT obituary. One was this sentence: "He quickly developed an interest in the survivability of communications systems in the event of a nuclear attack, and spent the next several years at RAND working on a series of 13 papers ? two of them classified ? under contract to the Air Force, titled, 'On Distributed Communications.' " Does anyone know if those classified papers might be declassified, if only to allow scholars to more fully assess Paul's contributions? From nigel at channelisles.net Mon Mar 28 07:34:40 2011 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:34:40 +0100 Subject: [ih] Paul Baran In-Reply-To: <4D9098B3.6090903@tamu.edu> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4D9098B3.6090903@tamu.edu> Message-ID: <4D909C80.9020901@channelisles.net> Folks: I wonder if I can enlist the collective wisdom of the members of this list. A friend of mine is working on a project -- to document the 'Untold Stories of the Creation of the Internet'. The idea is not to write a complete history, but to paint a picture of some of the more interesting and amusing stories of the last 30-40 years. She and I'd be grateful for any and all leads in this area .. Kind regards From nigel at channelisles.net Mon Mar 28 07:35:01 2011 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:35:01 +0100 Subject: [ih] Untold tales. .. In-Reply-To: <4D9098B3.6090903@tamu.edu> References: <20110301035038.5971718C10B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4D9098B3.6090903@tamu.edu> Message-ID: <4D909C95.4020908@channelisles.net> Folks: I wonder if I can enlist the collective wisdom of the members of this list. A friend of mine is working on a project -- to document the 'Untold Stories of the Creation of the Internet'. The idea is not to write a complete history, but to paint a picture of some of the more interesting and amusing stories of the last 30-40 years. She and I'd be grateful for any and all leads in this area .. Kind regards From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Mar 28 08:26:58 2011 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:26:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Paul Baran Message-ID: <20110328152658.0E04718C0BD@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> From: Guy Almes > Does anyone know if those classified papers might be declassified, > if only to allow scholars to more fully assess Paul's contributions? I don't know if they have ever been declassified - the RAND site about this work: http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran-list.html doesn't contain them. However, Baran himself said (in his oral history interview with CBI, pg. 25) that they "did not add much to the discussion", so I'm not sure we'd learn much from them. One covered "Weak spots and Patches", and it contained a couple of bugs found by readers of the 11-volume set, and fixes for those issues. The other concerned cryptography, which is obviously not central to the work. A giant has left us. Noel From feinler at earthlink.net Mon Mar 28 17:44:47 2011 From: feinler at earthlink.net (Elizabeth Feinler) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:44:47 -0700 Subject: [ih] Paul Baran documents In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mar 28, 2011, at 12:00 PM, internet-history-request at postel.org wrote: > Send internet-history mailing list submissions to > internet-history at postel.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > internet-history-request at postel.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > internet-history-owner at postel.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of internet-history digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Paul Baran (Guy Almes) > 2. Re: Paul Baran (Nigel Roberts) > 3. Untold tales. .. (Nigel Roberts) > 4. Re: Paul Baran (Noel Chiappa) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:18:27 -0500 > From: Guy Almes > Subject: [ih] Paul Baran > To: internet-history at postel.org > Message-ID: <4D9098B3.6090903 at tamu.edu> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed If you can find the exact references for these Rand documents, you can request them under the freedom of information act from government document services (used to be NTIS under the Dept. of Commerce. I'm not sure if that is still the name of the agency.) I too am saddened by Paul's passing. He was a kind, soft spoken man, always a gentleman, and a brilliant mind. I was also sad to hear that Mike Padlipsky (MAP) is no longer with us. He was a long-time network friend, always let me know when I did something inelegant on the net, had an amusing sense of humor, and a wonderful grasp of the English language. I remember way back when someone at the Range Measurement Lab. sent out a military directive telling every host on the internet to send RML paper copies of all the software on their machines. This was a meaningless pursuit that pushed everyone's buttons. MAP wrote a letter that was a classic. He was then at MIT Multics, a site that probably had more software than anyone else at the time. The letter estimated the amount of software, how many reams of paper would be needed to print it, the man hours required, the size of a truck that might be needed, and how much it would cost. It asked to which project it should be charged, and where at RML the requestor would like to have the results delivered (or words to that effect.) Needless to say, that ended the request for paper software once and for all. If anyone has a copy of that letter, please post it to the group. It was a gem. I can still hear Mike saying things like...."You could make a case for....well maybe a six-pack...." Farewell to two old network friends. Jake > > A friend made me aware, this morning, of the death of Paul Baran (cf. > ). There > were many interesting aspects of the NYT obituary. > One was this sentence: "He quickly developed an interest in the > survivability of communications systems in the event of a nuclear > attack, and spent the next several years at RAND working on a series of > 13 papers ? two of them classified ? under contract to the Air Force, > titled, 'On Distributed Communications.' " > Does anyone know if those classified papers might be declassified, if > only to allow scholars to more fully assess Paul's contributions? > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:34:40 +0100 > From: "Nigel Roberts" > Subject: Re: [ih] Paul Baran > To: internet-history at postel.org > Message-ID: <4D909C80.9020901 at channelisles.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed > > Folks: > > I wonder if I can enlist the collective wisdom of the members of this list. > > A friend of mine is working on a project -- to document the 'Untold > Stories of the Creation of the Internet'. The idea is not to write a > complete history, but to paint a picture of some of the more interesting > and amusing stories of the last 30-40 years. > > She and I'd be grateful for any and all leads in this area .. > > Kind regards > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:35:01 +0100 > From: "Nigel Roberts" > Subject: [ih] Untold tales. .. > To: internet-history at postel.org > Message-ID: <4D909C95.4020908 at channelisles.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed > > Folks: > > I wonder if I can enlist the collective wisdom of the members of this list. > > A friend of mine is working on a project -- to document the 'Untold > Stories of the Creation of the Internet'. The idea is not to write a > complete history, but to paint a picture of some of the more interesting > and amusing stories of the last 30-40 years. > > She and I'd be grateful for any and all leads in this area .. > > Kind regards > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:26:58 -0400 (EDT) > From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) > Subject: Re: [ih] Paul Baran > To: internet-history at postel.org > Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > Message-ID: <20110328152658.0E04718C0BD at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > > From: Guy Almes > >> Does anyone know if those classified papers might be declassified, >> if only to allow scholars to more fully assess Paul's contributions? > > I don't know if they have ever been declassified - the RAND site about > this work: > > http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran-list.html > > doesn't contain them. > > However, Baran himself said (in his oral history interview with CBI, pg. > 25) that they "did not add much to the discussion", so I'm not sure we'd > learn much from them. > > One covered "Weak spots and Patches", and it contained a couple of bugs > found by readers of the 11-volume set, and fixes for those issues. The > other concerned cryptography, which is obviously not central to the work. > > > A giant has left us. > > Noel > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > > End of internet-history Digest, Vol 51, Issue 11 > ************************************************ From eric.gade at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 03:32:08 2011 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:32:08 +0100 Subject: [ih] Online source for Namedroppers? Message-ID: Hello all. Last year someone was kind enough to post an online archive that contained Namedroppers messages from 1983-1990. That site ( http://psg.com/lists/namedroppers) has since stopped hosting them. Does anyone know of an alternative? -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From feinler at earthlink.net Thu Mar 31 15:40:24 2011 From: feinler at earthlink.net (Elizabeth Feinler) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:40:24 -0700 Subject: [ih] internet-history Digest, Vol 51, Issue 13 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ABC61F-81B4-489A-8A62-E2DC8999BF78@earthlink.net> Eric, The NIC published a cd which contained the Namedroppers messages. The Computer History Museum has my copy of the cd. Contact Paula Jabloner (pjabloner at conputerhistory.org). Regards, Jake On Mar 31, 2011, at 12:00 PM, internet-history-request at postel.org wrote: > Send internet-history mailing list submissions to > internet-history at postel.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > internet-history-request at postel.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > internet-history-owner at postel.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of internet-history digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Online source for Namedroppers? (Eric Gade) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:32:08 +0100 > From: Eric Gade > Subject: [ih] Online source for Namedroppers? > To: internet-history at postel.org > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hello all. > > Last year someone was kind enough to post an online archive that contained > Namedroppers messages from 1983-1990. That site ( > http://psg.com/lists/namedroppers) has since stopped hosting them. Does > anyone know of an alternative? > > -- > Eric > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/attachments/20110331/6b091b9a/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > > End of internet-history Digest, Vol 51, Issue 13 > ************************************************