[ih] 13 the unlucky number

[Jacob Goense]

The fuzzball archive seems down at the moment, but it is still
there[1]. Mills' PING was a client and server, or "pinger and
sounder" as he called it. Muus' ping(8) was the client side to
complement the BSD kernel.

http://web.archive.org/web/20131020063249/http://malarky.udel.edu/~dmills/data/du0/PING.MAC

On 2020-08-12 07:01, Louis Mamakos via Internet-history wrote:
> The timing here lines up with Dave Mills' fuzzball code we had
> running at University of Maryland (where Dave was a visiting
> professor for a "special topics" networking class.)  I do
> fondly recall Fuzzball PING and it was certainly a well-used
> tool for the initial debugging of the UNIVAC TCP/IP stack that
> Mike Petry and I started implementing at that time - fall 1980.
> 
> It was also around that time that we added the initial Ethernet
> support in the Fuzzball code, adding ARP and a QBus InterLAN
> interface.  Once again, PING was the universal debugging tool.
> 
> I do recall seeing "Packet InterNet Groper" in the Fuzzball
> source code.
> 
> louie
> 
> On 11 Aug 2020, at 16:21, Jack Haverty via Internet-history 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> 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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