[ih] Saving IETF history

[Toerless Eckert]

Strange. First pages say:

MEMORANDUM
To: Recipients of IMPSYS document (herewith)
From: B. Brooks
Subject: IMPSYS document
Date: February 16, 1973
"This document is being given only to a few people in the IMP
group; please guard your copy and -keep it from prying eyes. 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN
BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN, INC . . PROPRIETARY INFORMATION.
FURNISHED FOR U. S. GOVERNMENT
END USE ONLY. 

Sounded confidential to me

Cheers
    Toerless

On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 03:16:48PM -0400, Dave Walden wrote:
> I assume it was always public since the listing itself was public -- for a
> small shipping fee we sent a mag tape of the listing to people who
> requested it. I worked on the similar TIP documentation while watching the
> Watergate hearings on TV.
> The imp doc has been very useful as my memory got weaker.
> 
> On Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:59 PM Toerless Eckert <tte at cs.fau.de> wrote:
> 
> > So who would back in the day read this documentation, and at which point in
> > time did it become "public" ?
> >
> > If it was produced grudgingly and maybe not even read by government folks
> > funding the project, one can still be very happy about at that point in
> > time
> > maybe seemingly useless bureaucracy now. Very interesting read.
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Toerless
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 09:30:21AM -0400, dave walden via Internet-history
> > wrote:
> > > The 1973 IMP had extensive documentation although not for the purpose of
> > a
> > > patent dispute and not exactly for the same listing version as we were
> > > analyzing.
> > > See
> > https://walden-family.com/impcode/IMPSYS-Document-with-flowcharts.pdf
> > > and'
> > > https://walden-family.com/impcode/Technical_Information_Report_89.pdf
> > > These also are now archived at the Software History Center of the
> > Computer
> > > History Museum.
> > >
> > > Such documentation was not our normal practice.  It was required one
> > year by
> > > whichever government person was managing our contract --- for a purpose
> > I do
> > > not remember.  More normally, the documentation was the listing and in
> > the
> > > memory of the program maintainer.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 5/12/2021 11:21 PM, Toerless Eckert via Internet-history wrote:
> > > > Thanks for the story, Jack.
> > > >
> > > > Given how much of a believer in good public documentation i am,
> > however curious:
> > > >
> > > > Was the functionality in question well enough publically documented
> > with
> > > > according early dates ? I suspect not befcause i would be surprised if
> > the documentation
> > > > would not have been good enough, if it existed. After all, most
> > patents are also graanted
> > > > without evidence that they work, so its patenting of concept, not
> > evidence
> > > > thereof (which might have been different in decades before my time
> > though..).
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > >      Toerless
> > > >
> > > >
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > tte at cs.fau.de
> >

-- 
---
tte at cs.fau.de