[ih] inter-network communication history

Thu Nov 7 14:27:00 PST 2019

Yes, the NCC was the name for the ARPANET network control center.  The
NOC was the room - the Operations Center - from which a variety of
networks were managed, including ARPANET, SATNET, DDN pieces (MILNET et
al) as well as commercial networks.  It moved also as we had more and
more networks to operate.  So the NCC was physically in the NOC.

By the time we started doing gateway operations, the venerable PDP-1
that controlled the ARPANET circa 1970s had retired and PDP-10s had
replaced it.  I suspect the timeline is documented in the various
contract reports from that period, if they're still available through DTIC.

/Jack

On 11/7/19 2:11 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
> thanks jack... a couple of quips:
>
> #1.) yours truly believes that the ARPANET, et all was managed by the
> folks an "entity" known -- during that time -- as the NCC (Network
> Control Center), not the NOC.
>
> #2.) yours truly also seems to recall that the ARPANET was software-ly
> controlled by a PDP-1 not a PDP-10,
> viz. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc301:
>
>     Network Working Group                            R. Alter
>     Request for Comments #301                        BBN
>     NIC #9073                                        11 February 1972
>     References:  None
>     Updates:  None
>     Obsoletes:  None
>
>                   
>
>
>       BBN IMP (#5) AND NCC SCHEDULE MARCH 4, 1971
>
>
>
>        On Saturday morning, March 4, 1972, at 0800 EST the BBN IMP (#5)
>        will go off the air to allow for a move of the equipment to a
>        new location in BBN's facilities.  The NCC telephone and operators
>        will be available as usual during this period.  We hope to have
>        the IMP back on the Network by early Saturday afternoon; the
>        choice of Saturday morning was made intentionally so that if by
>        some stroke of fate all our wideband lines stay down longer than
>        anticipated, the impact on others in the network will be minimized.
>        We anticipate that all other sites will operate normally through
>        this period.
>
>        Shortly subsequent to this move, a new Host will be connected to
>        the net.  This is a PDP-1D at BBN which will be used for certain
>        additional NCC functions.  It will not be a Server site.  We
>        prefer the Host name "BBN-1D"; its network address will be 197.
>
>
> seem to also recall that (Bernie Cosell?) had provided yours truly
> with the dialup phone # & access for the PDP-1 machine (since it was
> only an ARPANET "USER" host and did not allow incoming connections)
> that had a user telnet program called UTEL that yours truly connected
> back to SRI-AI at the time with, just for grins and giggles. :D
>
> it would seem logical that at some point and time the yeoman's duty
> PDP-1 was summarily retired and the runnage of The Net was then moved
> to a more "modern" PDP-10 -- but don't have a timeline on that -- but
> do remember XNET though. :D
>
> geoff
>
> On Thu, Nov 7, 2019 at 11:31 AM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org
> <mailto:jack at 3kitty.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 11/7/19 12:05 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
>
>>     jack, that was Really Excellent... say, in The Interest in
>>     further documenting Internet History, could you please elucidate
>>     for us on *The Internet "Control Panel"* and its
>>     functionality/workings (as excerpted from your website
>>     -- http://3kitty.org/):
>>
>>          ... /(At one point back around 1980, the "control panel" for
>>         The Internet was on his desk!)/...
>>
>     Thanks, Geoff.  Yes, there's lots of the history, perhaps most,
>     that was never captured in RFCs.  Some of that was captured in
>     various contract deliverables, e.g., the Quarterly Technical
>     Reports that we all had to do.
>
>     That comment about the "control panel on my desk" came from an
>     offhand comment I made to someone who had asked about what I did
>     back in the early Internet days.   The phrase was apparently a
>     good sound bite.
>
>     Here's what happened, as far as I can remember it.  There's a lot
>     of detailed information about the early history in the QTRs we did
>     at BBN (and e.g., SRI), much of which is available online from DTIC.
>
>     From the November 1981 BBN QTR (DTIC ADA108783):
>
>     "During this quarter, responsibility for  gateway maintenance and
>     development was transferred from the Information Sciences Division
>     to the Computer Systems Division (now Communications Systems
>     Division).  The motivation for this transfer was the need to
>     emphasize the treatment of the gateways as an operational
>     communications system, rather than a research tool to support the
>     growing user community.  In this approach, we plan increasingly to
>     treat the gateway system much as we do the ARPANET and SATNET
>     systems in terms of monitoring and maintenance.  This will require
>     increased emphasis on the development and enhancement of tools for
>     the remote operation of the gateways."
>
>     I remember writing that.  Vint had talked to me earlier that year
>     to see if I was willing to take over the gateway work and fold it
>     in to the "operations and maintenance" we had already been doing
>     on the ARPANET for the previous 10 years as well as more recently
>     SATNET.   I think Vint saw the need for the Internet to be up all
>     the time, not just for experiments and demos, and for someone to
>     be called to report problems.
>
>     To me now, this was an inflection point in the history of the
>     Internet -- when it went from being a research tool to being an
>     operational 7x24 service.  To accomplish that, we plagiarized
>     eagerly from the ARPANET, introducing the same kinds of tools and
>     processes that had evolved and been proven over the previous
>     decade.   It also involved rewriting the gateways into assembly
>     language from the earlier research implementation in BCPL.    Our
>     Division had been running the ARPANET for a decade, and the NOC
>     was just down the hall from the "Gateway Guys" offices, so
>     technology transfer was straightforward.
>
>     At some point in that process, the gateways were added to the
>     repertoire of things that the ARPANET NOC operated on a 24x7
>     basis, and a gateway control terminal appeared inside the
>     ARPANET/SATNET operations room, and the operator(s) on duty were
>     responsible for also keeping the gateways running, just as they
>     had been doing for the ARPANET and SATNET IMPs.
>
>     Prior to that, of course we had to build and debug the appropriate
>     software.  The "control console" was simply a terminal connected
>     to the BBN PDP-10 where the management software ran.   Sorry, I
>     can't remember the name of the software, or which BBN-xxx machine
>     it was on.  You could "control the Internet" simply by connecting
>     a terminal to that software, and your terminal became the "control
>     console".
>
>     So, as that quote says, at some point before it went to the NOC
>     I'm sure I tried it out by connecting from the terminal on my
>     desk.  I had a reputation for being able to find bugs within
>     minutes after somebody declared something ready.
>
>     However, it was much more likely that the control console was in
>     use by somebody else, either working in my group or one of the
>     ARPANET-related ones.  At the time, Bob Hinden, Mike Brescia, and
>     Alan Sheltzer were working on gateway development, and writing the
>     code.  David Floodpage had been developing the CMCC - Catenet
>     Monitoring and Control Center, which was used to operate SATNET. 
>     Marty Schoffstall was working on other pieces - e.g., what later
>     became SNMP.  Lots of other people who I have probably missed.
>
>     We pushed very hard on getting mechanisms into place in the
>     IP/gateway world that reflected the tools that had proven useful
>     in the ARPANET - things like Traps, Software Download (see XNET),
>     traffic statistics, controls, patching, etc.  Lots of that stuff
>     eventually made its way into RFCs et al, and also made the
>     Internet into a 24x7 service.
>
>     Hope this helps,
>
>     /Jack Haverty
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com>
> living as The Truth is True
> http://geoff.livejournal.com <http://geoff.livejournal.com/>  
>
>
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