[ih] distributed network control: Usenet

[Bob Purvy]

OK, I've been resisting promoting my book(s), so apologies but here goes:

Inventing the Future
<https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Future-Albert-Cory/dp/1736298615/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0>
(on
the Xerox Star) takes a much different approach than the history books: I
wrote it as historical *fiction* (the characters are fictional, but the
events are all real). I've finished the first draft of the sequel, which
goes through most of the 80s and the growth of Ethernet and the Internet.

So some of what you've all been talking about will appear in Book II, but
definitely not *all* of it. No one was present for all of it. I wasn't.
I've had some help from Dave Crocker and Bob Metcalfe already and I hope
some of the rest of you will help out, too.

Why historical fiction? To get into what it felt like, not just what
happened. To try and recapture what it was like to be part of it and not
know how it was going to turn out. Because I can't write dialog and
meetings with real people -- no one remembers what they said or did back
then, and if they did they might not all agree, or give permission. Fiction
is just a different animal. My touchstone is the *Master and Commander* series
of books by Patrick O'Brian.


On Wed, Jul 21, 2021 at 1:57 PM Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 22-Jul-21 03:50, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
> > Well... yes.  I wasn't quite sure if you were alluding to BBN - I kind
> > of thought you might have been referring to either DoD or the US
> Government.
> >
> > Still - what about the various component networks - like NASA SPAN, and
>
> > the European nets?  Or did those come later?
>
> SPAN, and the US version of HEPNET, were DECnet based (Phase IV, and
> migrating to Phase V == DECnet/CLNP as time went on). The European TCP/IP
> scene was pretty fragmented, that's why Carl Malamud's book is such a
> treasure, but there are at least four references, starting with Carl:
>
> 1. Exploring the Internet: A Technical Travelogue, Carl Malamud, Prentice
> Hall, 1992.
>
> 2. A History of International Research Networking, Howard Davies and
> Beatrice Bressan (editors), Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (A somewhat mistitled
> book, since it describes only the European scene, with much emphasis on
> OSI.)
>
> 3. The “hidden” history of European Research Networking, or “The sad saga
> of the obscurantism of some European networking leaders and their influence
> on European Research Networks”, Olivier H. Martin, 2012, available at
> http://www.ictconsulting.ch/papers.html.
> (Highly recommended!)
>
> 4. Network Geeks – How They Built the Internet, Brian E. Carpenter, 2013,
> Springer, ISBN: 978-1-4471-5024-4. (Badly titled by the publisher and not
> so highly recommended, but Chapters 7 & 8 are relevant.)
>
>    Brian
>
> >
> > Miles
> >
> >
> > Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> >> Weren't those all managed by the same organization or its contractor,
> >> in the early 80s before EGP?
> >>
> >> I remember that at one point BBN was the contractor managing CSNET
> >> (Dick Edmiston).   NSFNET started in mid-80s and IIRC was thoroughly
> >> dominated by Dave Mills' Fuzzballs.  Our experiences when Dave was
> >> experimenting with connecting his Fuzzies to the core Internet was a
> >> primary motivator for EGP, which made it possible for Fuzzies to
> >> connect and do their thing without impacting the core.   BBN
> had some
> >> managerial role in NSFNET too IIRC.
> >>
> >> After EGP, and probably more importantly BGP, the world of
> >> Internetworking changed.
> >>
> >> /Jack
> >>
> >>
> >> On 7/20/21 4:03 PM, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Jack Haverty wrote:
> >>>>> What I was referencing was a non-technical design decision -- the
> >>>>> notion
> >>>>> that there shouldn't be any single person, corporation, or
> >>>>> organization
> >>>>> "managing the network".   The ARPANET, and IIRC all other
> networks of
> >>>>> the day, were under a single organization's control.
> >>> Really?  NASA SPAN, DOEnet, then CSnet, and then the Supercomputer
> >>> Center Networks, and the NSFnet regionals & Backbone?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>