[ih] byte order, was Octal vs Hex, not Re: Dotted decimal notation

[the keyboard of geoff goodfellow]

yours truly believes the first "TTY Net" was that was the earliest "LAN"
implementation was done at Stanford on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Suppes Institute for Mathematical
Studies in the Social Sciences (IMSSS) PDP-10 which my 7th/8th grade school
(Oak Knoll, in Menlo Park, CA) had a room full of Teletype (Model 33's)
connected to that provided Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI)
experiments.  will try to dig an old report on this effort...

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 11:18 AM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:

> The MIT-DM TTY controller for our KA PDP-10 was a homebrew device, built
> by Steve Morton.   Steve really really wanted to design and build a disk
> interface.  But we already had a disk interface, and just needed more TTY
> lines.  So he was told to make a TTY interface.  He did, but designed it as
> if it was to be a disk interface.   I don't recall exactly how it
> interfaced to the CPU, but it was fast and efficient.
>
> I added a bit of logic on the RS232 side to boost line speeds up near
> 100kb/s over RG174 cable spanning between the 2nd (Imlacs) and 9th (PDP-10)
> floors of the building.   We ran about 8-10 Imlacs on those TTY lines,
> which became a favorite for MazeWars.   It didn't consume very much of the
> CPU, but it occupied all of the terminals (Imlacs).
>
> I've wondered if that "TTY Net" was one of the earliest "LAN"
> implementation.  We certainly used it like a LAN.  Metcalfe hadn't gotten
> around to inventing Ethernet yet, he was still involved with the IMP
> interface.
>
> /Jack
>
> On 12/31/20 12:34 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
>
> jack, sure thought so that that so called "legend" is Total Fantasy...!
>
> btw, serial lines connected to the PDP-10's Line Scanner caused an
> Interrupt Per Character... the fact that Mazwar (most especially with your
> "bandwidth enhancement") became consumer of CPU jives with yours truly's
> remembrance of our KA-10 (SRI-AI) when yours truly requested our display
> terminal speeds get upped to 9600 baud (from 2400) and was told that wasn't
> gonna happen cuz 4 9600 baud terminals going flat out would consume all the
> the CPU (and leave nothing for the users programs to run)!
>
> we did have ONE "terminal" that went at 9600 baud: a
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_GT40 vector graphic terminal and when
> we downloaded programs to it (it was located in our machine room not to far
> from the KA-10's console) you could see the light on the console
> corresponding to its Job # be on SOLID -- for a program that was
> literally just spewing/typing out the contents of the executable being
> swallowed by the GT40.
>
> now speaking of something that DARPA DID summarily ban: the NCP port 21
> "Short Text Message" (dirty) Limerick Server... :D
>
> geoff
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 9:42 AM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> I just asked this question on a forum of ex-BBN employees, which is
>> populated by many of the people who were involved with building and
>> operating the ARPANET from its beginning and through the 70s and 80s.
>> That elicited answers from the two people who were in charge of the
>> ARPANET project through that time, with ARPA as their client/boss, as
>> well as engineers who worked on building and operating it.
>>
>> The consensus -- no such thing as ARPA banning MazeWars over the ARPANET
>> actually happened:
>>
>> "I would have heard about it if it were true.  I was deeply connected
>> with ARPA at the time"
>>
>> So I'd consider that pretty good evidence that the "legend" is fantasy.
>>
>> MazeWars was (unsuccessfully) banned at MIT-DM as it became a prime
>> consumer of CPU and Console time, but that mostly just shifted gaming
>> into the wee hours of the day.   No ARPANET involved.
>>
>> /Jack Haverty
>> (MIT-DM 1970-1977; BBN 1977-1990)
>>
>> On 12/31/20 4:10 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via Internet-history wrote:
>> > Geoff Goodfellow wrote:
>> >> the MIT PDP-10 reference must be of Al Vezza's MIT-DM host, but yours
>> truly
>> >> is kinda perplexed over the last sentence of:
>> >>
>> >> "Mazewar games between MIT and Stanford were a major data load on the
>> >> early Arpanet."
>> >>
>> >> wondering just what host at Stanford this must have been -- if not
>> SU-AI --
>> >> which yours truly recalls had a couple of Imlac's -- one of which was
>> at
>> >> JMC's (John McCarthy's) house and other at RWW's (Richard Weyhrauch's)
>> >> house -- both of which were connected with 1200 baud leased lines...
>> hardly
>> >> big enough to "contribute" to "a major data load on the early
>> Arpanet." --
>> >> most especially given that JMC &/ RWW didn't seem to be the mazewar
>> playing
>> >> kinda folks...
>> >>
>> >> anyone got more "history" here on this...¿¿¿
>> > I have seen this story many times, but no evidence to back it up.
>> >
>> > It seems DEC WRL's MazeWar for X10/X11/Sunview is one source for the
>> > claim.  The manpage says "MazeWar first appeared at MIT in the early
>> > 1970s, using IMLAC displays and the ArpaNet network.  Legend has it
>> > that, at one point during that period, MazeWar was banned by DARPA from
>> > the ArpaNet because half of all the packets in a given month were
>> > MazeWar packets flying between Stanford and MIT."
>>
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>>
>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True