[ih] 13 the unlucky number
Jack Haverty
jack at 3kitty.org
Tue Aug 11 15:49:01 PDT 2020
Yes, that makes sense. Before Mike wrote the ping program, we all had
our own ways of doing such tests, typically not as user-friendly as
Mike's. E.g., when I was debugging the TCP for Unix, I could use the
debugger (DDT) to create a packet directly in memory, and then start the
program running at some "Send packet" location to get it out to the
net. I remember including several "packet templates" in my source
code, just so they could be used later in DDT. I'm sure Dave Mills and
others used similar techniques, and he inspired Mike to write the
program and get a real user interface.
This all occurred roughly in the timeframe between TCP version 2.5 and
TCP/IP version 4, when the IP header was split out of the original TCP
header. After many arguments about what should go in each header, and a
fear that they would be simply too big if everyone's desires were met,
we defined ICMP as a separate protocol, and also introduced the
"Options" feature in the headers. Plenty of space for everything, and
room for future additions. That's when Echo Request and Echo Reply
appeared, and lots of other stuff. Lots of tools got generated in that
era, e.g., things like a TCP socket that would just spew data at you.
Much of that suite of "debugging tools" was just adopted from the
analogous ARPANET mechanisms, which had been running for almost a decade
by then.
Mike's story jives with my recollection. I'm not sure if he was the
first to use the term "ping", or if possibly Dave Mills was the one who
thought up the acronym expansion (knowing Dave back then I can believe
it). But we were probing using IP packets almost from Day 1, but it
wasn't until later that the term "ping" became popular.
/Jack
On 8/11/20 1:51 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> Jack, I believe one of the first implementations was Mike Muuss of BRL
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 4:22 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>
> Ping may have been released in 1983 but it was in use long before
> that. When I was in charge of keeping the "core gateways" running,
> Dave Mills was famous for doing lots of experiments that often gave us
> heartburn. I clearly recall him telling us at some Internet meeting
> about his experiments and the tool he used - he called it "Ping", and
> explained it was an acronym for "Packet InterNet Groper". This was
> probably 1979/80 or thereabouts. I don't know that Dave invented
> "ping", but I believe that's where I first heard about it.
>
> /Jack
>
>
> On 8/11/20 1:06 PM, Alejandro Acosta via Internet-history wrote:
> > uh, good question.
> >
> > Based on the days of the firsts networks and the release of ping the
> > answer is none, afaik, ping was released in 1983
> >
> > On 8/11/20 2:43 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> >> A related question, if you're exploring Internet History, might be
> >> "Which of the early networks were ever actually operational
> nets on The
> >> Internet, i.e., nets that you could ping and get a response?"
> >>
> >> I was involved in the 77-80s timeframe, and as I recall, many
> of those
> >> low numbered networks were assigned numbers, but didn't
> actually ever
> >> get connected to the operational Internet.
> >>
> >> /Jack Haverty
> >>
> >> On 8/11/20 10:53 AM, Alejandro Acosta via Internet-history wrote:
> >>> Hello All,
> >>>
> >>> First, really thanks for your comments.
> >>>
> >>> I read a little bit more about the network 13. I supposed I
> should
> >>> have done this before sending the email.
> >>>
> >>> As I said, it does not appear in RFC 790 (Sep 81), and it
> does not
> >>> appear until RFC 990 (Nov 1986 assigned to XEROX)
> >>>
> >>> However, I just realized that actually network 13 was first
> seen in
> >>> RFC 739 assigned to National Physical Laboratory and last seen
> in RFC
> >>> 776.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Thanks again & sorry for the noise.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Alejandro,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 8/11/20 12:45 PM, Alex McKenzie via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>> Alejandro,
> >>>> I don't think any of us can speak for Jon Postel, who
> assigned the
> >>>> numbers, and sadly he is no longer with us to speak for
> himself. I
> >>>> knew Jon pretty well and he showed no evidence of being a
> >>>> superstitious person. I think Steve Crocker's explanation
> that the
> >>>> number was assigned to an entity that could not yet be made
> public on
> >>>> the date RFC 790 was released is the most likely answer.
> >>>> For what its worth,Alex McKenzie
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tuesday, August 11, 2020, 9:08:58 AM EDT, Alejandro
> Acosta
> >>>> via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> >>>> Hello list,
> >>>>
> >>>> I have a question and one more time I believe this a
> good place
> >>>> to ask.
> >>>>
> >>>> During the weekend I read the old RFC 790 (ASSIGNED
> NUMBERS).
> >>>> When
> >>>> reading it I noticed the following:
> >>>>
> >>>> {...}
> >>>>
> >>>> 009.rrr.rrr.rrr BRAGG-PR Ft. Bragg Packet
> Radio Net
> >>>> [JEM]
> >>>> 010.rrr.rrr.rrr ARPANET ARPANET [17,1,VGC]
> >>>> 011.rrr.rrr.rrr UCLNET University College
> London
> >>>> [PK]
> >>>> 012.rrr.rrr.rrr CYCLADES CYCLADES [VGC]
> >>>> 013.rrr.rrr.rrr Unassigned [JBP]
> >>>> 014.rrr.rrr.rrr TELENET TELENET [VGC]
> >>>> 015.rrr.rrr.rrr EPSS British Post Office EPSS
> >>>> [PK]
> >>>> 016.rrr.rrr.rrr DATAPAC DATAPAC [VGC]
> >>>> 017.rrr.rrr.rrr TRANSPAC TRANSPAC [VGC]
> >>>> 018.rrr.rrr.rrr LCSNET MIT LCS Network
> [43,10,DDC2]
> >>>>
> >>>> {...}
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> As you can see the 013.rrr.rrr.rrr was unassigned but some
> >>>> subsequent
> >>>> prefix were (014, 015 ..... ). Is there any reason for it?. I
> know 013
> >>>> was later assigned to XEROX-NET.
> >>>>
> >>>> I wonder if 013 was skipped because some sort of
> superstitions?.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Alejandro,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
>
> --
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