[ih] Recently restored and a small ARPANET was run using simulated IMP hardware. (was: TTL [was Exterior Gateway Protocol])
Vint Cerf
vint at google.com
Mon Sep 7 04:13:43 PDT 2020
Packet Radios were developed by Collins Radio. I do not recall that they
downloaded from neighbors.
As to the 1976 report, there was a famous test from Rosati's. There was an
LSI-11 "terminal" connected to a packet radio. My guess is that they would
have just TELNETTED into a PDP-10 at SRI and delivered the report that way.
I doubt that they had email running in the LSI-11.
v
On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 2:47 AM Barbara Denny via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> Because of BBN's involvement, I am thinking Packet Radio might have
> reused many of the same ideas as the IMPs for loading new software from
> another node. Do you know this was not the case? I never needed to look at
> that part of the code.
> I remember using XNET for examination of the Packet Radio station. Given
> your recent email it sounds like you looked for old Packet Radio station
> software and couldn't find it. Is this correct?
> I don't think Rockwell released their Packet Radio software in the late
> 70s/early 80s. I would have to contact Rockwell if I thought bugs required
> a change to a packet radio, versus the Packet Radio station, when I worked
> at BBN. I know several years later SRI did get some of their code because
> I implemented one of the new routing algorithms ( I am pretty sure it was
> called threshold distance vector routing if anyone is interested). BTW, I
> think the software may have only been tested in a simulator due to delays
> in the delivery of the LPR (Low Cost Packet Radio). This was during the
> SURAN program.
> The first demo of Packet Radio and ARPANET in 1976 involved submitting the
> status report. Don Nielson would probably remember if that was done
> through anything like email. Below is a link to an article that discusses
> this event. The text from the article mentions email but more importantly
> it has a link to a podcast with Don. I didn't know this podcast existed so
> I still need to listen to it. I can see why you might think the report
> submission may have been done by using a telnet connection to a SRI host
> that had email.
>
> https://hightechforum.org/happy-birthday-internet-richard-bennett-talks-with-don-nielson/
> barbara
> On Sunday, September 6, 2020, 12:39:38 PM PDT, Jack Haverty via
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Geoff - thanks for that bit of history and kudos!
>
> I think there's an Internet connection in your experience. I'm not sure
> what, legally, "wireless email" means. But I suspect that email was
> being sent and received, wirelessly, well before even 1982, if only to
> and from the SRI Packet Radio van that could occasionally be seen then
> roaming around the Bay Area.
>
> Of course, technically, that probably involved a Telnet connection,
> wirelessly, to some PDP-10 running an email program. But, legally, it
> might meet the court accepted definition of "wireless email". I
> learned from the lawyers that much of litigation involves arguing about
> the meaning of words and phrases.
>
> So, perhaps someone could have looked for mouldering Packet Radio (aka
> PR) hardware and software, and demonstrated wireless email circa 1978
> over one or more PRNETs.
>
> Sadly, although I was pretty sure that interesting "prior art" would be
> found in the PR environment, we had little success 7 years ago while
> trying to find anything that might show exactly how PR equipment
> "downloaded instructions".
>
> There's remarkably little readily discoverable material about lots of
> the computer and network systems of the 70s/80s, especially internal
> details of operation, tools, procedures, etc. Plenty of stuff on
> Routing, but little on other mechanisms, or other types of networks of
> that era, at least that the lawyers and I could find. IMHO, that's a
> huge gap even in Internet History, since the Internet did not evolve in
> a vacuum, was itself composed of more than the ARPANET, and was
> surrounded by competitors (remember multiprotocol routers).
>
> /Jack
>
> On 9/6/20 11:58 AM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
> > Jack, you're a Most Eloquent purveyor of history and that WHY explain
> > is exactly what yours truly was hoping for... Thank You for the
> > elucidation! :D
> >
> > along the lines vis-a-vis:
> >
> > So, that's a bit about the "Why", for history to ponder. The
> > experience got me wondering about the "patent history" of The
> > Internet. Clearly there was a lot of innovation in those days.
> > My recollection is that very little was patented, even if only to
> > make sure no one else could. Maybe someone will document the
> > patent-related aspects of Internet History someday.
> >
> > please excuse/pardon this immodesty: yours truly had a kinda similar
> > "lawyered" experience with respect to WHO was the purported
> > "inventor"/originator of wireless email in a patent litigation case
> > and the "challenge" of finding/presenting any extant legally
> > submissive "artifactual proof" to that effect -- for which John
> > Markoff at the New York Times wrote about in this 2006 article:
> >
> > In Silicon Valley, a Man Without a Patent
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/business/technology/in-silicon-valley-a-man-without-a-patent.html
> >
> > for which some links of "proof" exist -- for some stuff mentioned in
> > the above NYT article -- on my website https://iconia.com/ under
> > "wireless email" (in case any historians are duly interested)...
> >
> > geoff
> >
> > On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 8:24 AM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org
> > <mailto:jack at 3kitty.org>> wrote:
> >
> > Geoff,
> >
> > Dave's IEEE paper does an excellent job of the
> > Who/What/When/Where <https://teams.googleplex.com/u/What/When/Where>.
> He's right that it was about 7 years ago.
> > Time flies... but I guess it's still "recent" when viewed as part
> > of Internet History.
> >
> > For the curious, I can add a bit more about the Why.
> >
> > Sometime in 2013, I got an email out of the blue from Charlie
> > Neuhauser, someone I didn't recognize or remember at all, asking
> > if I was the "Jack Haverty" who authored IEN 158 - documenting the
> > XNET protocol in 1980. Figuring that the statute of limitations
> > must have expired after 30+ years, I cautiously said yes. Over
> > the next few days, he hooked me up with the lawyers who were
> > involved in a patent dispute - one that had been going on for
> > several decades by then. In fact, the patent involved had been
> > issued, ran its 17 year lifetime, and expired, but there was still
> > litigation in process about whether or not the patent was valid,
> > and 17 years of violations were alleged cause for compensation in
> > the many millions. For the next few years I was involved in the
> > battles, working with the lawyers scattered all over the country.
> > I never met any of them. All our work was done by email and
> > telephone. No Zoom then or we probably would have used it.
> >
> > The core issue in the patent battle concerned "downloading
> > instructions", mechanisms such as would be involved in patching or
> > issuing new software releases to remote equipment. XNET seemed
> > to them to possibly have something to do with that, hence the
> > interest. The goal was to find hard evidence that such procedures
> > were being done by 1980, which would prove that prior art
> > existed. Hard evidence literally means "hard" - opinions help,
> > but physical equipment and running code is much more impressive in
> > a courtroom.
> >
> > They hadn't found any XNET artifacts, and I couldn't point them to
> > any surviving implementations. But I pointed out that my XNET
> > document simply captured the technology that we "stole" from the
> > ARPANET IMP experience, and that the IMPs routinely "downloaded
> > code" from their neighbors and the NOC all during the life of the
> > ARPANET.
> >
> > Since the IMPs had existed since the early 70s, that really
> > sparked their interest, and a search (worldwide) ensued to find
> > old IMPs, in the hope that just maybe one of them still had the
> > IMP software in its magnetic-core memory. A few IMPs were
> > located, but none were functional. The one in the museum at UCLA
> > seemed promising, but the owners were reluctant to even hook it up
> > to power after sitting idle for so many years, expecting it might
> > go up in smoke.
> >
> > Then I learned from the BBN alumni mailing list that an ancient
> > IMP listing had been found in a basement. The story from that
> > point is pretty well described in Dave's paper.
> >
> > Personally, it was an interesting experience. I worked
> > extensively with one lawyer in San Diego. I taught him how
> > computers and networks actually work; he taught me a lot about the
> > legal system regarding patents. IMHO, they are equally
> > convoluted and complex when viewed from the other's perspective.
> >
> > I also learned a lot about the IMP code, which I had never even
> > looked at while I was at BBN. One task I took on was to
> > exhaustively analyze the parts of the IMP code that implemented
> > the "download new instructions" functionality, writing up an
> > instruction-by-instruction description of how the code
> > accomplished that by interacting with a neighboring IMP. It was
> > a very clever design, and extremely tight code, even including
> > self-modifying instructions. Not easy to figure out (or explain
> > in language amenable to a non-technical judge or jury). So there
> > was great interest in being able to demonstrate the code in action
> > using real software from the 70s and hardware simulators.
> > Tangible evidence is much better than even expert opinions.
> >
> > The whole legal project came to a sudden end just a few months
> > prior to the first court date. I was looking forward to going
> > to Delaware (legal action was filed in Federal court in Delaware),
> > and finally meeting some of the people. But the parties settled
> > suddenly, the case was dropped, and AFAIK the patent question was
> > never resolved.
> >
> > So, that's a bit about the "Why", for history to ponder. The
> > experience got me wondering about the "patent history" of The
> > Internet. Clearly there was a lot of innovation in those days.
> > My recollection is that very little was patented, even if only to
> > make sure no one else could. Maybe someone will document the
> > patent-related aspects of Internet History someday.
> >
> > /Jack Haverty
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/6/20 12:34 AM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
> >> jack, you've raised my curiosity with respect to:
> >>
> >> ... There
> >> *is* ARPANET IMP software which was recently restored and a small
> >> ARPANET was run using simulated IMP hardware.
> >>
> >> Who/What/When/Where/Why
> <https://teams.googleplex.com/u/What/When/Where/Why>?
> >>
> >> geoff
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 8:40 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history
> >> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Lukasz,
> >>
> >> I think that the earliest implementations of TTL called it
> >> "Time", but
> >> I'm not aware that anyone actually used time per se in
> >> gateways, at
> >> least in the early days (1977-1982 or so).
> >>
> >> TCP implementations didn't do anything with TTL other than
> >> set it on
> >> outgoing datagrams, and at least in my implementation (TCP
> >> for Unix), it
> >> was just set to some arbitrary value. Until we had some data
> >> from
> >> experimentation it was hard to evaluate ideas about what
> >> routers, hosts,
> >> et al should actually do. The early TCPs did use time in
> >> handling
> >> retransmission timers, and there was work a bit later to
> >> incorporate
> >> time more powerfully into TCP behavior, e.g., Van Jacobson's
> >> work.
> >>
> >> The early gateways, IIRC, used the terminology "time", but in
> >> practice
> >> used just hop counts, since time measurements were difficult to
> >> implement. The exception to that may be Dave Mills'
> >> Fuzzballs, since
> >> Dave was the implementor most interested in time and making
> >> precise
> >> measurements of network behavior. I *think* Dave may have
> >> used time
> >> values and delay-based routing amongst his "fuzzies".
> >>
> >> The BBN doc you're seeking might have been one of many that
> >> discussed
> >> the ARPANET internal mechanisms, e.g., ones with titles like
> >> "Routing
> >> Algorithm Improvements". The ARPANET internal mechanisms did
> >> use time.
> >> It was fairly simple in the IMPs, since the delay introduced
> >> by the
> >> synchronous communications lines could be easily predicted,
> >> and the
> >> other major component of delay was the time spent in queues,
> >> which could
> >> be measured fairly easily.
> >>
> >> I even found one BBN ARPANET Project QTR from circa 1975 that
> >> discussed
> >> the merits of the new-fangled TCP proposal that some
> >> professor had
> >> published -- and seemed to conclude it couldn't possibly work.
> >>
> >> My involvement in implementations of TCPs and gateways lasted
> >> through
> >> about mid-1983, so I don't know much of the detail of subsequent
> >> implementations. For the various BBN gateway/router
> >> equipment, Bob
> >> Hinden would probably be a good source. The other major
> >> early player
> >> was MIT and spinoffs (Proteon), which perhaps Noel Chiappa will
> >> remember. There's also at least one paper on the Fuzzballs
> >> which may
> >> have some details.
> >>
> >> One thing I'd advise being careful of is the various
> >> "specifications" in
> >> RFCs. Much of the wording in those was intentionally
> >> non-prescriptive
> >> (use of "should" or "may" instead of "must"), to provide as much
> >> latitude as possible for experimentation with new ideas,
> >> especially
> >> within an AS. The Internet was an Experiment.
> >>
> >> Also, there was no consistent enforcement mechanism to assure
> >> that
> >> implementations actually even conformed to the "must"
> >> elements. So
> >> Reality could be very different from Specification.
> >>
> >> I don't know of any gateway implementations that have
> >> survived. There
> >> *is* ARPANET IMP software which was recently restored and a small
> >> ARPANET was run using simulated IMP hardware. I still have
> >> a ~1979
> >> listing of the TCP I wrote for Unix, but haven't scanned it
> >> into digital
> >> form yet.
> >>
> >> Jack
> >>
> >> On 9/5/20 7:38 PM, Łukasz Bromirski wrote:
> >> > Jack,
> >> >
> >> > I was reading a lot of old BBN PDFs thanks to all good souls on
> >> > this list that post nice URLs from time to time.
> >> >
> >> > I remember reading in at least one of them, that apparently
> >> first
> >> > TCP/IP implementations were indeed using TTL as literally
> >> “time”,
> >> > not hop count. I believe there somewhere there between PDP docs
> >> > and ARPANET docs I’ve read something to the effect “and
> >> from this
> >> > time we changed from measuring time to simply count routing
> >> hops”.
> >> > Of course, right now google-fu is failing me.
> >> >
> >> > Quoting RFC 1009 that was already brought up, there’s quite
> >> > direct “definition” of the field:
> >> >
> >> > "4.8. Time-To-Live
> >> >
> >> > The Time-to-Live (TTL) field of the IP header is defined
> >> to be a
> >> > timer limiting the lifetime of a datagram in the
> >> Internet. It is
> >> > an 8-bit field and the units are seconds. This would
> >> imply that
> >> > for a maximum TTL of 255 a datagram would time-out after
> >> about 4
> >> > and a quarter minutes. Another aspect of the definition
> >> requires
> >> > each gateway (or other module) that handles a datagram to
> >> > decrement the TTL by at least one, even if the elapsed
> >> time was
> >> > much less than a second. Since this is very often the
> >> case, the
> >> > TTL effectively becomes a hop count limit on how far a
> >> datagram
> >> > can propagate through the Internet."
> >> >
> >> > Were there any implementations that survived somewhere and
> >> actually
> >> > did exactly that - counted actual time/processing delay,
> >> not hops?
> >> > And if it took 2s to process packet, did they really
> >> decrement TTL
> >> > by two?
> >> >
> >> > Thanks for any pointers,
> >>
> >> --
> >> Internet-history mailing list
> >> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com>
> >> living as The Truth is True
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com>
> > living as The Truth is True
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
>
> --
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>
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