[ih] Origins of Go-Back-N

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 15-Nov-21 06:15, touch--- via Internet-history wrote:
> Hi, John,
> 
> I don’t know the first instance of go-back-N, but selective repeat (in this case, selective NACK) was used by Edelcrantz in the Swiss countryside optical telegraph in roughly 1800 according to Wikipedia (I’ve seen similar descriptions in a little book the IEEE published on the history of telecom). The details of Chappe’s optical telegraph in France weren’t documented, so may have had similar functions and predate this.
> 
> I wouldn’t be surprised if go-back-N had origins near that time 
or before.

In human speech, I would guess that "Say again!" or its equivalent has been in use for at least 100,000 years. So Go-Back-N would always have been 
obvious to one skilled in the art of conversation.

More recently, I believe one needs to look at codes like AA in radiotelegraphy, e.g.
"AA All after … (used after a question mark in radiotelegraphy or 
after RQ
in radiotelephony (in case of language difficulties) or after RPT, to
request a repetition)." [Rec. ITU-R M.1172] I don't know how old that is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARQ-M describes Automatic Repeat reQuest, Multiplex, dated 1947.

    Brian

> 
> Joe
> 
> —
> Joe Touch, temporal epistemologist
> www.strayalpha.com
> 
>> On Nov 14, 2021, at 6:22 AM, John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>> I think this came up before, but I am going to ask anyway:
>>
>> Can someone point me at the first proposal for Go-Back-N?  When and by 
whom?
>>
>> Is it before or after SDLC, which according to the wikipedia is 1975?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> John
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>