[ih] 30th Anniversary of TCP/IP

Wed Jan 2 09:52:20 PST 2013

The cutover to TCP/IP was interesting.  Joe Haughney, DCA, had much earlier picked a cutover date out of a hat, so to speak, and chose Jan. 1, 1983.  Nobody thought about the fact that most of the work to make the cutover happen was going to be done at universities and most universities would be on vacation on Jan. 1st.  Also, the NIC started getting requests for Protocol Handbooks.  We had not published one for quite a while because no funding had been approved, and the few we had on hand were woefully out of date.  We refused to send out outdated information.  I frantically called Jon Postel at ISI, and between the NIC and Jon we kludged together an up-to-date version of the PH that no one but the two of us had approved. The NIC published it with SRI funds, as I was reluctant to publish anything on government funds that had not been vetted and approved (a procedure that would probably have taken months.)  Jon and I referred to this as the "plain brown wrapper version" of the Protocol Handbook, although I think the covers were actually buff.  

Many of you remember Jon;s TCP/IP "bake-offs", the sharing of implementations for the many operating systems out there at the time, and the incredible back-and-forth exchange of information and detail among the many dedicated implementors.  I came in to SRI on cutover New Year's Eve, logged in, and panned around the net.  It was amazing how many programmers were back and online, determined to make the cutover to TCP/IP a success.  And as they say.....the rest is history.  It was an incredible technological event to observe and be a small part of.

Who knew 30 years ago what the impact of that event would be!

Hats off to all who made it happen.

Jake
On Jan 1, 2013, at 12:00 PM, internet-history-request at postel.org wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP (Bill Ricker)
>   2. Re: 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP (Randy Bush)
>   3. Re: 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP (Bill Ricker)
> 
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:05:28 -0500
> From: Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ih] 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP
> To: internet-history at postel.org
> Cc: mm-malts-l <MM-MALTS-L at grsnet.net>
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAbKA3XHxCjUVT6sjtzT3GUdL0sqNA7BTmrqqwP1ad-fuisSUw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 2:27 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>wrote:
> 
>>> From: IETF Chair <chair at ietf.org>
>>> The ARPANET transitioned to TCP/IP on 1 January 1983. That was 30
>> years
>>> ago,
>> 
>> It's very hard indeed to fully grasp that it's only been 30 years.
>> 
> 
> Right. Then tonight i should open the one 1983 vintage scotch in Mike
> Padlipsky's collection with which to toast this anniversary.
> 
> [Glenhaven "Speyside" 1983/1996 sherry-wood]
> 
> -- 
> Bill
> @n1vux bill.n1vux at gmail.com
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> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2013 07:20:53 +0900
> From: Randy Bush <randy at psg.com>
> Subject: Re: [ih] 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP
> To: Paul Vixie <paul at redbarn.org>
> Cc: internet-history at postel.org, IETF Disgust <ietf at ietf.org>
> Message-ID: <m2pq1pdfsq.wl%randy at psg.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
>> born in 1963, i felt throughout the 70's and 80's that i had been born
>> too late, that all the fun stuff had been done already. now in the
>> 10's i feel like we're just getting going and that i was probably born
>> too soon, that all the fun stuff is coming 50 years from now.
> 
> if you missed the '60s, indeed you were born too late.
> 
> we watched the moon landing with our host's great grandmother who grew
> up with gas lighting in her home.
> 
> the pace accelerates.  technology advances more and more rapidly.
> civilization?  not so much.
> 
> randy
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:29:32 -0500
> From: Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ih] 30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP
> To: internet-history at postel.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAbKA3VjsP=5r=4mV1Kw3hO9nABG80rT+LUKmsx-9g0p2epfCw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
>> 
>> Right. Then tonight i should open the one 1983 vintage scotch in Mike
>> Padlipsky's collection with which to toast this anniversary.
>> [Glenhaven "Speyside" 1983/1996 sherry-wood]
>> 
> 
> Argh. Typo in my data, it's a 1980/1996 16yo. If there's an actual 1982 or
> 1983 it's unnoted. So much for symbolism.
> 
> So I'll toast the cut-over with something of MAP's before switching to Snow
> Phoenix or Macallan Cask Str for dessert.
> 
> -- 
> Bill
> @n1vux bill.n1vux at gmail.com
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