[ih] Nit-picking an origin story

[vinton cerf]

I think Bob Kahn might have been the origin of that story.
v


On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 2:34 PM John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:

> I heard a story, which I think is true (someone can correct me if not)
> that in the very early days before BBN had an IMP on the Net, BBN could
> monitor the lines of the ARPANET between UCLA, UCSB, SRI, and Utah. They
> noticed a certain behavior on the line between UCSB (it might have been
> UCLA) and SRI that always led to the line going down.  So one day, they saw
> the behavior and called PacBell to tell them that this specific line
> between USCB and SRI was about to go down. The conversation supposedly went
> like this:
> PacBell: You are at UCSB?
> BBN: No.
> PacBell: Then you are at SRI.
> BBN: No
> PacBell: Then where are you!?
> BBN; Cambridge, Massachusetts.
> PacBell: Yea, right. (click)
> A few minutes later the line went down.  ;-)
>
> There was another phone call and this time the guy listened.
>
> John
>
> > On Aug 24, 2025, at 13:57, Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > "A History of The ARPANET: The First Decade"
> >
> > Dated 1 April, 1981.
> >
> > Page 17:
> >
> > "DECCO was able to handle all the contractual details with the
> > common carriers for circuit leases. Most of the required 50 kilobit
> > circuits used in the ARPANET were leased through DECCO from AT&T,
> > but a small number of circuits were leased from other carriers such
> > as General Telephone. In addition, DARPA arranged for a special
> > point of contact in AT&T (long lines), which greatly facilitated the
> > interactions between the network system contractor, DARPA, and AT&T.
> > The selection of network node locations and the internode
> > connections (and, therefore, the location of circuit terminations)
> > was a specialized topology problem and represented a difficult
> > theoretical problem in its own right. To help solve this particular
> > problem, DARPA contracted with the Network Analysis Corporation
> > (NAC)."
> >
> > You can get the full report here:
> >
> >
> https://ipj.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/A-History-of-the-ARPANet.pdf
> >
> >
> >
> > Ole J. Jacobsen
> > Editor and Publisher
> > The Internet Protocol Journal
> > Office: +1 415-550-9433
> > Cell:   +1 415-370-4628
> > Docomo: +81 90 3337-9311
> > Norway: +47 98 00 26 30
> > Web: protocoljournal.org
> > E-mail: olejacobsen at me.com
> > E-mail: ole at protocoljournal.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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