[ih] Another TCP Reference Implementation

[Jack Haverty]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Bob Braden <braden at isi.edu> wrote:

Those were truly fun times. Jack and Vint, is there an authoritative
list of the six reference implementations?

=======================================

Hi Bob!  Yes, fun times.

I'm not sure what makes an implementation a "reference
implementation".   I did find my old manila folder labelled "TCP
Meeting Bakeoff 1/27-29/1979", which has documents on the "scoring"of
the "TCP Testing Session" with schedule for Saturday, 27 January 1979
10:00 - Discussion of Procedures; 10:30 - Testing Begins"    Since
that session was where lots of things like checksums were hammered out
to achieve NxN interoperability, perhaps those are the "reference"
implementations?  I remember we subsequently documented what the test
TCPs actually did to create the next TCP spec.

Anyway, the regular TCP Meeting was the following Monday, and the
printed list of attendees includes Haverty, Plummer, Tomlinson,
Wingfield, Cerf, Cain, McFarland, Grossman, Abramovitz, Biba. Cohen,
Postel, Chiappa, Clark, Stensby, Sunshine, Davie, Masterman, Mathis,
Poggio, Cringle, Meyne, and Braden.

I assume that list includes the people who were at the prior Saturday
Bakeoff, so the TCPs involved were likely:

Haverty - PDP11 Unix
Plummer - PDP10 Tenex (or TOPS20?)
Wingfield - PDP11 Unix (11/70)
Clark - Multics
Mathis - LSI11
Braden - 360

TCP implementations had been around for over a year prior to this.
Also, this was the time when the TCP3 spec was being hammered out.  I
found a bunch of notes about that, as well as a copy of the January
1978 "Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Program  TCP
Version 3" by Cerf and Postel, along with a "Transmittal Letter"
listing 2 pages of issues to be resolved in the next edition.   As I
recall, the "next edition" was TCP 4.

There were other TCP implementations going on, but I think the
"Bakeoff" was where the nitty gritty details got ironed out and nailed
down -- like exactly how the various pieces of the headers got
calculated in the checksum -- and that led to interoperability.  But
there were also implementations in progress at Ford, DTI, BBN (HP3000,
Vax, TIP), and elsewhere (UCL?)

Also found a piece of paper -- "The First Traditional TCP Bakeoff
Special Award  Jack Haverty" signed (in ink, no printed signatures
here!) by Dr. Vinton G. Cerf.   I can't recall what the award was for
though.  Must be a collectors' item...

Jon must have written up a report on the results of the tests.  Still
digging around in the garage....

/Jack

PS - was someone looking for an official TCP version 3 spec?