[ih] early networking

[Dave Crocker]

On 4/8/2024 3:05 PM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> interesting pre-Arpanet/Internet history
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkwWZ6ujy0

Since this was an effort to exactly replace the torn-tape interchanges, 
let's add this to the mix: the USC-ISI Military Message System 
Experiment for Oahu:

    SIGMA Final Report. Volume V, Part 1-3. Introduction, Functional
    Description and Evaluation.

    https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA116359
    https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA116359.pdf


            Abstract:

    The first part of this report introduces SIGMA, the automated
    message-handling system used in the Military Message Experiment,
    developed at the Information Sciences Institute. This introduction
    is divided into two parts. The first, from 1968 to 1975, covers the
    period from the recognition of the need for improved communications
    at Camp Smith, Oahu, to the actual signing of a Memorandum of
    Agreement to conduct the MME. The second part covers ISIs
    involvement in the planning and the actual conducting of the MME,
    roughly from 1973 to 1979. The second part of the SIGMA Final Report
    describes the functionality of SIGMA as a user views it. This part
    introduces the reader to the system in roughly the sequences that a
    new user is exposed to it. It starts with a discussion of the
    terminal, followed by the log-on procedure, then proceeds to the
    various objects the user deals with in SIGMA and the operations he
    may perform on them. The developers of SIGMA learned a great deal
    during the MME about what the proper functions of an automated
    message-handling system should be, but these lessons were only part
    of the developers education. The experimental results were affected
    more by several higher level issues than by the details of the
    message service operation. This part of the SIGMA Final Report is
    divided into the following major sections high-level issues,
    functional and design considerations for a message service, and
    lessons on development and operational environment for the experiment.

d/

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