[ih] Fwd: List archives (Was: Exterior Gateway Protocol)

[Dan Lynch]

SoJack, you are asking me to recount how Interop came to be. I shall do that as quickly as I can here. 

In the early 80s I was at ISI in charge of the computer facility. After a year or so there came to be a term New Computing Environment to describe the advent of personal computers and the death of timesharing!  I think Keith Uncapher coined the term, tho maybe Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf had a hand in it. Anyway fast forward a few years and I was back in Silicon Valley looking to start a company like my pals at Stanford had been doing. I looked around and noticed that the Internet was gaining traction but the nascent companies had not quite got it right. So I convinced Barry Leiner who was a program manager there in 85/86 to let me convene a 3 day workshop on TCP/IP protocols to explain them to the hundred or so implementation teams out there. I got the actual protocol designers to come to Monterrey California for 3 days. There was no company name then. I had no idea where this was going then. Needless to say the event was a success. The researchers learned of real life problems the early vendors we’re experiencing and the vendors learned a lot more about the Internet and what worked and what still needed further steps. 

I now had a business of teaching (through others) the vendors and advanced customers how the Internet works. I needed a name. I took the old name above and called it Advanced Computing Environment. 

A few years in to this the world really wanted to see working systems and I decided to try a trade show, with one critical addition: the systems had to be connected to an actual working Internet!  And while I was on the phone with one of my brilliant tutor people from BBN, Craig Partridge, as were were concluding the call he blurted out “I’ll see you at Interop “. I hung up the phone and called my lawyer to register the name immediately!  I had been calling it The TCP/IP Interoperability Conference and Exhibition!  Ah, simplicity. 

That was in September of 1988. It had 50 vendors and 5000 attendees. In 1990 it had grown to 200 vendors and 30,000 attendees. Clearly this Internet stuff was catching on, eh?  

So I sold the company and stayed on for 5 more years as the PR guy and growing it into Europe and Asia. 

30 years later it still exists in about 10 locations I. The world. Not quite the same, but still stressing interoperability. 

Thanks for asking, Jack. 



Dan

Cell 650-776-7313

> On Sep 5, 2020, at 1:28 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Dan!
> 
> There's so much of the history that didn't get recorded in RFCs and
> such, and mail list archives from that era are rare.  We weren't very
> good about documenting things, especially the "why" of how decisions
> were made.
> 
> There's plenty of room for more participation!   Perhaps you can provide
> the story behind this artifact of the early Internet?
> 
> ACE Coaster
> 
> That coaster has been sitting on my desk for close to 40 years.  The
> lettering is fading, after too many attacks by marauding coffee mugs
> over the decades, and a few trips to the floor courtesy of a roaming cat. 
> 
> The story of ACE, and Interop which followed, is an important part of
> Internet history.  There tends to be a focus on protocols and
> algorithms, but innovations like Interop were, IMHO, equally important
> to the success of the Internet by making it accessible to the masses and
> emphasizing the importance of working systems. 
> 
> Perhaps more important.   Tell us the story.
> 
> /Jack
> 
> 
>> On 9/5/20 12:10 PM, Dan Lynch via Internet-history wrote:
>> Forgot to copy the fantastic list!
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> Cell 650-776-7313
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: Dan Lynch <dan at lynch.com>
>>> Date: September 5, 2020 at 11:42:36 AM PDT
>>> To: Joseph Touch <touch at strayalpha.com>
>>> Subject: Re:  [ih] List archives (Was: Exterior Gateway Protocol)
>>> 
>>> Great!  These discussions are amazing, considering that they are being done by the actual inventors of much of the Internet some 3 or 4 decades later. We were young then, eh?  Of course they must be open to the world. Thank you Noel, Miles, Brian, Tony, Vint, Jack, and others I’ve forgotten just now. 
>>> 
>>> Dan
>>> 
>>> Cell 650-776-7313
>>> 
>>>> On Sep 5, 2020, at 8:06 AM, Joseph Touch via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> HI, all,
>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Sep 5, 2020, at 7:58 AM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> From: Joseph Touch
>>>>>> FYI - we moved the archives here.
>>>>> I've just noticed that the archives are now only accessible to list members?
>>>> They should have been open. If anything changed recently, this is the first I heard. Either way, the setting has been updated to allow public access. 
>>>> 
>>>> Please let me know if you continue to find otherwise.
>>>> 
>>>> Joe (as list admin)
>>>> -- 
>>>> Internet-history mailing list
>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
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