[ih] Internet meeting - Catalina Island, California, circa 1980?

[Jack Haverty]

On 09/24/2018 09:43 AM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> Would there perhaps have been meetings before this that didn't get into the
> IEN series? 

Just to help the historians...  The IEN series is a wonderful resource,
but Jon's minutes only capture the meetings and projects where Jon was
personally involved.

There were *lots* of other meetings through the 70s and 80s.  Some were
within the general umbrella of the ARPA "Internet project", but focused
on a particular piece of it - e.g., Packet Radio, SATNET, WidebandNet,
Network Security, and even ARPANET.  Others focused on various
government(s) pilot projects to explore using TCP/IP - e.g., MATNET, and
a activities in a variety of non-ARPA activities, e.g., not only in US
military and other agencies, but also overseas places like RSRE in the UK.

There were even then significant projects in the commercial arena,
especially in the mid 80s and on, e.g., big, well-funded, projects in
places like Wall Street to use TCP/IP globally for their trading
mechanisms (the only time I ever saw a tractor-trailer full of Sun
workstations being delivered, and learned that it wasn't a unique or
even rare occurrence).

Lots of organizations had their own private little-I "internet" which
they used to learn how to use TCP/IP technology for their own purposes,
and how to build the missing mechanisms and processes needed for
operations that were generally not on Internet researchers' radar.

I personally participated in lots of those "other meetings" outside of
the ARPA/NSF arena, but there were many, many others that I wasn't
hooked into.  I'm sure lots of other people had similar experiences.

The aggregate of all that activity was what created The Internet.

Sadly, it seems that only Jon took the time to document such events.
Jon's writings are historically invaluable, but IMHO it's important to
remember that they only capture a small part of the story.

/Jack Haverty