[ih] Protocol numbers (was IP version 7)

[Craig Partridge]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 7:09 PM Barbara Denny via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>  I will throw out a guess about the mystery EMCON protocol number
> assignment.  It might be related to SRI's work for the Navy. We had a
> project called  Metanet that was looking at how to support TCP/IP
> networking when ships were under emission control.  In 1984, I gave a
> presentation about the work at a Gateway Special Interest Group Meeting
> hosted by Jon Postel at ISI (see RFC 898).  I don't remember us asking for
> a protocol number yet but we could have. I also wonder if Jon may have
> created a placeholder for us. I was working on the Ada implementation of
> the gateway at that point in time.  I don't think we had the EMCON details
> worked out yet.  The project got cancelled unexpectedly and on short notice
> due to a change in personnel if I remember correctly.
> barbara
>


Hey Barbara:

I didn't know you worked on METANET! That was my first project as a new
employee at BBN in 1983.  The job on the BBN side was to figure out if
different network topologies worked more or less well for shipboard command
centers.  As I recall, Ken Pogran was the initial PM and got TCP/IP working
on a bus network (Ungermann-Bass?) and then transitioned to something else,
so Ben Woznick took over and I was hired to get TCP/IP working on the 80MB
Proteon Ring. That was grand fun.  Rick Adams at Seismo also had a Proteon
Ring and I gave him my driver for his network.  And I swapped email for the
first time with Noel Chiappa -- as I recall, I was using another
Proteon network interface driver for guidance and its comments noted that
an old version of some Proteon board had a real halt and catch fire feature
(if you set the initialization word wrong, smoke happened) and Noel
observed that the comment was no longer valid. And I had the fastest
network in Cambridge all to myself (but, alas, had nothing much to run on
it).

Craig

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