[ih] Better-than-Best Effort

[Steve Crocker]

Jack,

You wrote:

I recall many visits to ARPA on Wilson Blvd in Arlington, VA. There were
terminals all over the building, pretty much all connected through the
ARPANET to a PDP-10 3000 miles away at USC in Marine Del Rey, CA.  The
technology of Packet Switching made it possible to keep a PDP-10 busy
servicing all those Users and minimize the costs of everything,
including those expensive communications circuits.  This was circa
1980.   Users could efficiently share expensive communications, and
expensive and distant computers -- although I always thought ARPA's
choice to use a computer 3000 miles away was probably more to
demonstrate the viability of the ARPANET than because it was cheaper
than using a computer somewhere near DC.


The choice of USC-ISI in Marina del Rey was due to other factors.  In 1972,
with ARPA/IPTO (Larry Roberts) strong support, Keith Uncapher moved his
research group out of RAND.  Uncapher explored a couple of possibilities
and found a comfortable institutional home with the University of Southern
California (USC) with the proviso the institute would be off campus.
Uncapher was solidly supportive of both ARPA/IPTO and of the Arpanet
project.  As the Arpanet grew, Roberts needed a place to have multiple
PDP-10s providing service on the Arpanet.  Not just for the staff at ARPA
but for many others as well.  Uncapher was cooperative and the rest
followed easily.

The fact that it demonstrated the viability of packet-switching over that
distance was perhaps a bonus, but the same would have been true almost
anywhere in the continental U.S. at that time.  The more important factor
was the quality of the relationship.  One could imagine setting up a small
farm of machines at various other universities, non-profits, or selected
for profit companies or even some military bases.  For each of these, cost,
contracting rules, the ambitions of the principal investigator, and staff
skill sets would have been the dominant concerns.

Steve