[ih] the Jan 1 1983 cutover to TCP/IP on the ARPAnet

[Bob Braden]

Recollections from the mists of time... January 1, 1983

It was actually quite exciting for those of us who had been defining the 
protocols and building
prototype implementations for roughly 5 years, to see TCP/IP really 
function in production.
At the time, we of course had no idea of its ultimate impact on the world.

I believe that the switchover was enforced by the ARPAnet operational 
organization, DCA,
disabling the primary link used by the ARPAnet host-host protocol NCP. 
Link 1? I guess
I could look it up.

The switchover was pretty much a non-event for UCLA's central computer 
(IBM 360/91)
that had been running my prototype implementation of TCP and IP for 
several years,
in parallel with production remote job entry service using NCP. On the 
other hand,
Dan Lynch had a tougher time. He was then operations manager at ISI, 
running a
"server farm" of TOP-20 systems, and he worked around the clock for several
days wringing bugs out of the TOPS-20 TCP.

We did have fun. Does anyone still have an "I survived Jan 1, 1983" T shirt?

Bob Braden