[ih] Arpanet physical connectors

[Jack Haverty]

On 7/23/20 8:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>     > From: Jack Haverty
>
>     > those particular connectors were readily available through the usual
>     > channels --- with a lead time of 60 weeks to delivery! 
>
> So I'm curious - what did you all do than?  :-)
>
> 	Noel
I don't remember exactly, but as a bunch of network engineers we were
used to scrambling around problems.  My suspicion is, since we were at
BBN, there was a bunch of old hardware lying around, including many
pieces of IMPs, sufficient to find the few connectors we needed for
delivering some prototypes, with any production units coming enough
later that the connectors would be there by then. 

This was the same gang that caused a little bureaucratic crisis when a
government inventory found one more IMP on the network than was supposed
to exist - someone built one out of spare parts when it was taking too
long to get a real one.

/Jack