[ih] A name from the past

[Noel Chiappa]

    > an article "Data Communications at the NPL (1965-1975)" in the 'Annals
    > of the History of Computing' (as it was then; Vol 9, No 3/4, if anyone
    > wants to look at it)

This has some other interesting tidbits.

On pg. 231, it observes: "This document [Scantlebury, Bartlett, "A Protocol
for Use in the NPL Data Communications Network", April, 1967] contains what
appears to be the first occurrence in print of the term 'protocol' in a
data communications context". Interesting!

On pg. 240, it describes the NPL network's 'isarithmic congestion control',
defined as a "computer could .. inject a data packet into the network only
[in place of another]", which sounds remarkably like the basic principle of
Van's congestion control design!

Finally, in the "Acknowledgements" section, we find listed a "B. E.
Carpenter", who I rather suspect is our Brian Carpenter! The paper came out
in 1988, and Brian had done his and Doran's book on "Turing's ACE Report" in
1986, and it involved close interaction with NPL; its Acknowledgements
section thanks Martin Campbell-Kelly, the author of the NPL history paper.

	Noel