[ih] SDC networking; Marill report

[David Hemmendinger]

	Thank you for the citation!  The Charles Babbage Institute has
a copy of the 1966 Marill Preliminary report: Box 701, folder 8 (Computer
Corporation of America).
	To echo the comment about "firsts": Michael Williams, a former
Computer History Museum curator, wrote "What does it mean to be the first
computer?" in the IEEE John Vincent Atanasoff 2006 International Symposium
on Modern Computing (DOI 10.1109/JVA.2006.54), in which he argues that
depending on precisely how one specifies "first", there are 18 candidates.
And in his introduction to Rojas and Hashagen, eds, _The First Computers_
(MIT Press, 2000), sec. 2, he wrote:

   Let me emphasize that there is no such thing as "first" in any activity
   associated with human invention. If you add enough adjectives to a
   description you can always claim your own favorite. For example the
   ENIAC is often claimed to be the "first electronic, general purpose,
   large scale, digital computer" and you certainly have to add all those
   adjectives before you have a correct statement.

	David Hemmendinger

>   1. Re: Internet-history Digest, Vol 69, Issue 11 (John Shoch)
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2025 14:17:43 -0700
>From: John Shoch <j at shoch.com>
>To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org, John Shoch <j at shoch.com>
>Subject: Re: [ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 69, Issue 11
>Message-ID:
>	<CAFrK2djQdiFAFnk9wjyZtVbEDjQjvNGZhSxq2182cercKtS9JQ at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
>My friends at the Computer History Museum always warn me about declaring
>"firsts":
>a.  you better get the facts absolutely correct, and
>b.  you better be fanatically precise in defining the terms (every noun,
>every adjective, etc.) -- and you better include the definitions.
>
>The UCLA statement which started this exchange lacks both -- thus, almost
>by definition, it is ambiguous and imprecise (and thus probably wrong).
>
>Efforts at NPL and Sage are certainly worth looking at.
>
>In addition, there was earlier work at SDC -- apparently in 1963 w/SRI, and
>ca. 1966 with MIT Lincoln Labs.  I will make no judgement about any
>"firsts" but let me bring to everyone's attention a couple of items:
>
>--There is an interesting and comprehensive historical look at this Q-32
>work in a paper by David Hemmendinger, published in 2016:
>"Two Early Interactive Computer Network Experiments."
>https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2016/03/man2016030012/13rRUwciPgt
>You can also access it at:
>https://cs.union.edu/~hemmendd/History/network6.pdf
>
>--In that paper he discusses an experiment in 1963 between SRI and SDC.  At
>that time Lick had taken over ARPA/IPTO, and ARPA had taken over the Sage
>Q-32 prototype that had been built for Sage at SDC.  Lick wanted SRI to
>connect to the Q-32.  Doug Engelbart described the work at the History of
>Workstations conference in 1986 [I spoke at the conference, and heard
>Doug's talk, but 40 years later I do not remember these comments]:
>https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/61975.66918
>"Lick moved very swiftly. By early 1963 we had a funded project. But,
>whereas I had proposed using a local computer and building an interactive
>workstation, Lick asked us instead to connect a display to the System
>Development Corporation's (SDC's) AN/FSQ32 computer, on site in Santa
>Monica, to do our experimenting under the Q32's projected new time-sharing
>system. (Converting the Q32 to be a timeshared machine was SDC's IPTO
>project.) Later that year, our project was modified to include an online
>data link from Menlo Park to Santa Monica, with a CDC 160A minicomputer at
>our end for a communication manager, supporting our small-display
>workstation."
>
>--Hemmendinger also discusses the more well-known work several years later,
>ca. 1966, by Tom Marill (at CCA) and Larry Roberts (at MIT) to connect the
>TX-2 to the Q-32 machine at SDC.
>
>--There seems to have been a CCA Technical Report in mid-1966, but I have
>never seen it;  Hemmendinger cites it as:
>T. Marill, "A Cooperative Network of Time-Sharing Computers: Preliminary
>Study," Technical Report No. 11, Computer Corporation of America,
>Cambridge, Mass. (1966).
>The preliminary study is also cited in a bibliography about the Arpanet:
>https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA026900.pdf
>Marill, T. A cooperative network of time-sharing computers: preliminary
>study. Cambridge, Ma., Computer Corporation of America, I Jun 66. 53 p.
>CCA-TR1-1 NIC 06458.  [Is this an SRI NIC identifier?]
>
>--The Preliminary Report may have been a predecessor or an early draft or a
>pre-print of a paper published later that year, to which Larry Roberts is
>added as a co-author:
>Thomas Marill and Lawrence G. Roberts, ?Toward a cooperative network of
>time-shared computers? in Proceedings of the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer
>Conference, pp. 425-431, ACM, New York, NY (November, 1966).
>https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1464291.1464336
>
>--Some interesting highlights from the paper:
>--They talk in passing about shipping programs from one machine to another,
>but then focus only on providing remote terminal access -- from a terminal
>on one computer, through a "network" to a program running on another
>computer.
>--An "elementary" model merely routes characters from a user's terminal
>through to the local machine, and then out another terminal link to the
>distant machine.  This requires no modifications at either end, but runs at
>terminal speeds.
>--They then expand the model:  "Thus, a possible alternative technique for
>achieving increased data-rates without greatly increasing the burden on the
>monitor would be to use high-rate data-only links, supplementing these by
>low-rate command-plus-data channels over which communication to the remote
>monitor could take place."  But this would require changes to the OS or
>monitor.
>--"The first step in that direction is the establishment of a message
>protocol, by which we mean a uniform agreed-upon manner of exchanging
>messages between two computers in the network."
>--These are point-to-point messages, but can provide error control:  "The
>primary reasons for considering the establishment of a message protocol are
>the following: ... By formatting transmissions into messages, and including
>a check-sum with each message, transmission errors can frequently be
>detected. If detected, the messages can automatically be retransmitted in
>accordance with the protocol."
>--But this was (at the time the paper was written) still an experimental
>work-in-progress:  "As will be seen below, work is proceeding on an
>experimental network between the TX-2 computer at Lincoln Laboratory and
>the Q-32 computer at System Development Corporation."
>--"As soon as possible, a series of demonstrations and experiments will be
>performed using the experimental network. The experience gained will be
>reported at the conference."  [Was anyone at the 1966 Fall Joint?]
>
>For more background on these early "networking" efforts I commend to you
>the Hemmendinger paper from 2016.
>
>John Shoch