[ih] Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan

[Miles Fidelman]

Vint Cerf wrote:
> I have no reason to dispute the facts in the story, either. However, 
> the writer does fail to recognize the pioneering nature of the CSNET 
> (it adopted TCP/IP thanks to Larry Landweber's 1980/81 intervention 
> before Dennis Jennings made the same decision for the NSFNET around 
> 1985. If I am remembering correctly, Dennis was involved with the 
> super computer effort at the time he recommended that the nascent 
> NSFNET also make use of TCP/IP. In Fall 1986, then-Senator Gore held a 
> hearing at which Bob Kahn introduced the term "information 
> infrastructure" and Senator Gore asked whether an optical fiber 
> network should be constructed to link the Supercomputer centers 
> together. The head of CISE at that time was Gordon Bell and he 
> convened a Feb 1987 meeting in San Diego that led to the proposal for 
> the National Research and Education Network program. I also seem to 
> recall that the supercomputer center directors lobbied unsuccessfully 
> to build their own, disconnected networks on the grounds that 
> performance required specialization and control by each center 
> [perhaps someone on the list can clarify that hazy memory]. They were 
> overruled (assuming I am remembering this correctly) in favor of an 
> NSF-wide network.
>

I  recall that some of the supercomputer centers DID have their own 
networks.  Along those lines, was not NEARnet late to the NSFnet - 
pulled together as a last minute response to the imminent shutdown of 
JVNCnet?

Miles Fidelman


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra