[ih] Another TCP Reference Implementation

[Vint Cerf]

These reminiscences are wonderful.

I do not have an official list of reference implementations and I am not
sure such a list was made.

as to the award - I do recall acquiring bottles of champagne to give out as
prizes in Postel's bakeoffs.

vint




On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:

> 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?
>
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