[ih] Memories of Flag Day?

[Greg Skinner]

> On Aug 9, 2023, at 6:50 PM, John Gilmore via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> I had a "tourist" account at the MIT-AI system running ITS, back in the
> NCP days.  I used to log in to it over a TIP that had RS232 cables
> quietly connecting it to a Telenet node.  I'd dial in to a local Telenet
> access point, connect to the cross-connect's node and port, and be
> talking to a TIP, where I'd "@o 134" to get to MIT-AI.
> 
> When NCP was turned off on the Flag Day, that stopped working.  At MIT,
> as I understand it, they decided not to implement TCP/IP for ITS.  The
> workaround for tourists like me was to borrow someone's account at
> MIT-OZ, which had TCP support and could also talk to ITS (over
> Chaosnet?).  So I'd connect from the TIP using TCP to MIT-OZ, and then
> connect to MIT-AI.  It worked OK, though I had to remember when (and how
> many times) to double the escape characters.  My access was via a dialup
> modem, which was probably the slowest part of the whole system.
> 

There was a TCP/IP implementation for ITS. The following snippet from the bug-its list [1] is from Ken Harrenstien, who worked at the SRI NIC:

****

KLH at MIT-MC 11/10/82 15:44:32 Re: ITS TCP is coming...
To: (BUG ITS) at MIT-MC, MIT-NET-CONNECT at MIT-MC
I am now officially working on the installation of TCP/IP in ITS.
The ITS sources in MC:SYSTEM; should be considered write-locked
as of today; if you need to make some changes, see me to fold them
in.  Likewise, if you know that these sources are for some reason
NOT the latest stuff, tell me immediately.  Ditto any patches
that haven't yet been put in the source.  If more than a couple of
people are interested in following the progress of this stuff, I
will create a mailing list to keep them posted and possibly to
solicit opinions on certain design issues.
Here we go, folks!

****

MIT-MC was accessible via its ARPAnet attachment using TCP/IP for some time afterwards.  I remember using TACs to access it and other Internet systems by giving the dotted quad notation.

—gregbo

[1] https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/its-archives/blob/master/email/its.obugs0