[ih] inter-network communication history

Thu Nov 7 14:11:22 PST 2019

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> 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
living as The Truth is True
http://geoff.livejournal.com
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