[ih] Design choices in SMTP

[Dave Crocker]

> NETRJE didn’t get a lot of use because the systems that could support 
> a Server FTP didn’t need the NETRJE. (Can someone correct me about that?)
>
> What did get a lot of use of was CCNRJE written by Bob Braden for the 
> UCLA CCN 360/91.


I used the RJE program, available at ISI, to submit jobs to the UCLA CCN 
360/91.  But I would have sworn the author was someone other than Braden.


The nature of the use was not as straightforward as Steve's example.

My job was user support and documentation at the UCLA Arpanet project.  
A year or two before getting hired, I'd become a fan of the NLS system 
at SRI, even including the text-only interface. (Prior to dropping out 
and getting hired for this job, I wrote a text formatter, with inline 
commands, that emulated the hierarchical text model in NLS.  I developed 
and ran it at my place of work which was the other 360/91 on campus, the 
NIH-funded Health Sciences Computing.  There were only 18 of those 
machines built. This was also my only major foray into using PL/1.)

Anyhow, I taught the department secretaries -- remember when that was 
what they were called? -- to use the remote system.  After editing, we 
needed to be able to print documents.  The one's they'd been editing and 
the ones from the NIC, of course.

So I had them FTP the document down to ISI and run the RJE program to 
send the document to the high-speed, upper and lower case printer at 
CCN.  The fastest U/L printer we had in the department was 120 cps, so 
this was /much/ better.

This also wound up generating a serious bit of learning about computer 
science and statistics. (Before and after dropping out, I studied 
Psychology and had taken 1 really basic stats course and no CS courses.)

The secretaries quickly got facile with the process, but they started 
complaining that the sequence would often fail.  I turned to my office 
mate, Jon Postel, and asked whether he had any suggestions. He had me 
explain the total sequence being used and asked how often things were 
failing and what the symptoms were.

I noted that there were widely different systems, but that the overall 
failure rate seemed to be about 50%,

He  asked how reliable our department Sigma 7 was, I suggested a good, 
but not outstanding number and he agreed.  Then he asked about the net 
itself, and we agreed it was highly reliable, maybe 90%. Then SRI, which 
wasn't great, and ISI, which had gotten quite good, then CCN, which was 
not great.

Cumulative probably came out almost exactly at 50%

I later hear that the failure to perform a similar, aggregate failure 
rate exercise was the reason the Russians beat us to space...

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social