[ih] Memories of Flag Day?

[Miles Fidelman]

And even with the stick, Wang just dragged their feet on implementing a 
TCP/IP stack - as a result, going from the Army's main computer vendor, 
to non-existent.

Miles

Andrew G. Malis wrote:
> Brian,
>
> There was a "slight" difference in scale between the two events - 
> several hundred ARPANET hosts vs. millions of IPv4 hosts.
>
> But without the stick, at least some subset of ARPANET hosts would 
> have decided why bother, as long as we can continue to talk to 
> each other? And the ARPANET would definitely have continued as a 
> dual-stack network, as hosts that implemented TCP would also have an 
> incentive to keep NCP going (other NCP-only hosts). Remember, at that 
> point there wasn't much other incentive to implement TCP, as the rest 
> of the Internet hadn't yet started to appear.
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 4:56 PM Brian E Carpenter 
> <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com <mailto:brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Andy,
>
>     So, it was your fault that we decided that "no flag day" was a vital
>     requirement for IPng :-). Seriously, I think that enough people
>     remembered the 1983 flag day and definitely said "never again!"
>
>     Regards
>         Brian Carpenter
>
>     On 07-Aug-23 04:17, Andrew G. Malis via Internet-history wrote:
>     > Miles,
>     >
>     > I wrote the IMP code to enforce the flag day and ran the
>     transition from
>     > the NOC.
>     >
>     > To prepare for the flag day, we added a new bit to each port's
>     > configuration in the IMPs. The bit said whether or not a port
>     was allowed
>     > to use the NCP host-host protocol (port 0). If the bit was off,
>     then NCP
>     > host-host packets were discarded by the IMPs.
>     >
>     > There was a defined procedure in place well prior to the cutover for
>     > approving exceptions to the no-NCP policy.
>     >
>     > On January 1, I pulled the switch to flip the bits from "on" to
>     "off"
>     > except for the pre-approved list of exceptions.
>     >
>     > A good number of hosts made the deadline, but additional
>     exceptions were
>     > approved as the phone calls started coming in. The exception
>     list continued
>     > to grow in the first few days of 1983, but as hosts gradually
>     got their
>     > TCP/IP stacks working, their NCP permission was turned off.
>     >
>     > As I recall, the exception list quickly shrank, and by the end
>     of the year
>     > there were very few NCP-only hosts left. There was certainly
>     some amount
>     > of pain involved, but NCP would have hung around for much longer
>     if the
>     > switchover hadn't been enforced.
>     >
>     > Cheers,
>     > Andy
>     >
>     >
>     > On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 7:35 AM Miles Fidelman via Internet-history <
>     > internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>     <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>     >
>     >> Hi Folks,
>     >>
>     >> Does anybody have some memories of the TCP/IP Flag Day they can
>     share?
>     >>
>     >> I'm doing some writing about "how network ecosystems develop"
>     looking at
>     >> how the Internet evolved from the days the net was a gleam in a few
>     >> people's eyes, Licklider distributed his famous memo, the NWG &
>     IETF
>     >> evolved, Flag Day, etc.  Also looking at the Environmental Movement
>     >> (Earth Day, Whole Earth Catalog, ...), FOSS, Crisis Mapping,
>     >> Entrepreneurship Support, Makers - all of which I've been up
>     close and
>     >> personal with, and now trying to document some common threads &
>     techniques.
>     >>
>     >> A particular focus is on organizing for significant
>     >> changes/transformations - like the transition to IP that pretty
>     much
>     >> marks the birth of the Internet as we know it.  Hence a particular
>     >> interest in what led up to the Flag Day, and how folks responded.
>     >>
>     >> In particular, I'm wondering how folks organized at various network
>     >> sites (universities, military bases, etc.) to respond to the
>     mandate.
>     >> Working groups, plans & programs, that sort of thing. How did
>     folks get
>     >> their act together?
>     >>
>     >> Anybody have any stories they can share?
>     >>
>     >> Thanks Very Much,
>     >>
>     >> Miles Fidelman
>     >>
>     >> --
>     >> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
>     >> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
>     >>
>     >> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
>     >> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
>     >> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
>     >> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown
>     >>
>     >> --
>     >> Internet-history mailing list
>     >> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>     <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>     >> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>     >>
>


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown