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

Tue Sep 8 13:13:50 PDT 2020

Dan was kind enough to mention me, which makes it a little harder to send
this note but I'll do it anyway.

I think Dan underplays how radical Interop was.  Vendors had to connect
their equipment to the show network.  There was a team of Internet wizards
who helped setup the show network for each show.  (I recall stories of
laying things out on netting in a warehouse so that it could easily be
transferred to the show floor).  But it meant products actually worked.

And then there was the education component, which as Dan tells, started
things.  Dan took the view that he tried to hire the top instructors in the
field and compensate them properly. At a time when competitors were paying
10% of the gross or $2K, whichever was *less*, Dan paid $2K or 10% of the
gross, whichever was *more*.  That meant Interop's courses, instead of
being taught by a grad student or a professor trying out a new course idea,
were taught by folks like Doug Comer and Scott Bradner and Radia Perlman,
teaching their areas of expertise.  As a result, the educational program
was immense -- many thousands of students.  And because the instructors
were already in town, Dan could recruit us to come do a panel session for
the main program as well.  The panels were often also huge.  (I still
remember a session I led that included Dave Clark and a couple of other key
folks -- the room was packed -- probably 5,000 people -- and was so jammed
that someone stepped on the tablecloth for the projector, dumping all our
slides [this was pre-Powerpoint real-time projection] on the floor!  So I
had to talk w/o slides while the other speakers ran to the back to reinsert
their slides!).

Attending Interop was a full week affair -- you got trained and then went
to the showfloor and conference sessions, while grabbing a handful of the
old Doubletree cookies (twice the size they are today) during the breaks.

The transitions in size were wild.  We went from Monterrey, to the Santa
Clara TechMart, to the San Jose Convention center to the Moscone Center in
SF in rapid succession.

Craig

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 12:52 PM Dan Lynch via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> 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
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>

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