[ih] NCP, TCP/IP question

[John Day]

Holmgren wrote the NCP under the close watch of Gary Grossman and I believe Steve Bunch got into the picture at some point. Grossman was lead on the TCP implementations but they eventually went over to Dave Healy.

> On Mar 10, 2020, at 08:46, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> there were at least two NCP implementations for UNIX...  one was written by
> Steve Zucker at RAND and the other was (perhaps?) written by Steve Holmgren
> at the University of illinois Urbana-Champaign.
> 
> yours truly had interactions with both of these NCP implementations --
> with Steve Holmgren integrating the Network Virtual Terminals into the
> kernel (from the telnetd pty processes).
> 
> the Rand NCP implementation (in Peter Weiner's RAND-ISD lab) "lost" and to
> yours trulys knowledge didn't get adopted outside of RAND.
> 
> geoff
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2020 at 10:29 PM Steve Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>> If memory serves, prior to Multics and Unix and with the exception of the
>> Burrough’s computers, operating systems were written in the assembly
>> language of the machine.  This includes the Sigma 7 (host 1), the SDS 940
>> (host 2), the IBM 360 (host 3) and Tenex (host 4).  The NCP (“Network
>> Control *Program*") was an addition to the existing code of the operating
>> system and, I believe, written in the same language as the operating
>> system.  I think C appeared with Unix.  I don't think C was used or
>> available on Tenex, but I'm not the most authoritative source.  I don't
>> know much about the later implementations of NCP.  PDP-11s became popular
>> and there were several operating systems written for them.  ELF (Dave Retz
>> in Santa Barbara) and ANTS (University of Illinois) come to mind, and I
>> think there were others.  At the time, I had the impression writing network
>> compatible operating systems for the PDP-11 was a cottage industry.
>> 
>> It would be interesting to compare the timelines of the transition from NCP
>> to TCP/IP with the evolution of hosts from the Tenex era to the Unix era.
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 2:09 AM Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> NCP was probably done in assembly language for most operating systems -
>>> adding steve crocker for comment
>>> TCP was written in BCPL at Stanford for PDP-11/40. Probaby C for Tenex.
>>> PL/1 (?) for 360's???
>>> 
>>> Let me ask the Internet History list.
>>> 
>>> v
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 2:03 AM Steve Kirsch <stk at m10.io> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Was it written in C? you’d think only a small part would have to be
>>>> customized for the operating system?!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> *From:* Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, March 9, 2020 1:59 AM
>>>> *To:* Steve Kirsch <stk at m10.io>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: NCP, TCP/IP question
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 1. NCP was written individually for each operating system
>>>> 
>>>> 2. TCP was also written for each operating system but UNIX propagated
>>>> most widely; TENEX version was popular for PDP-10s.
>>>> 
>>>> Bob Braden did the TCP for IBM 360/91 and I think that got ported to
>>>> 360/75 at UCSB. Berkeley BSD 4.2 and follow-ons was most widely spread
>> for
>>>> UNIX.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> v
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Mar 9, 2020 at 4:15 AM Steve Kirsch <stk at m10.io> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>   1. Did UCLA provide the source code for NCP and TCP/IP for various
>>>>   places to run?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>   1. Or did everyone write their own implementation based on the spec?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> If the latter, was that problematic? Would it have been easier if
>>>> everyone ran Unix and there was C source code that was distributed to
>>>> everyone to run? Is that in fact what in fact happened? Why UCLA lost
>> their
>>>> SEX and became EUNUCHs… I mean UNIX?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> --
>>>> 
>>>> New postal address:
>>>> 
>>>> Google
>>>> 
>>>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor
>>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Reston, VA 20190
>>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> New postal address:
>>> Google
>>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor
>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>> Reston, VA 20190
>>> <
>> https://www.google.com/maps/search/1875+Explorer+Street,+10th+Floor+Reston,+VA+20190?entry=gmail&source=g
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
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> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
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