[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 62, Issue 12

[John Shoch]

Noel,

Thanks for putting up a page on the Internet Experiment Notes, and early
meetings.  I was at some of the meetings, beginning ca. 1977 (but was
certainly not at all of them).  The minutes reflect the work of many smart
people grappling with new challenges.  They also show "how the sausage was
made....." ca. 1977-1978.
Other people probably know a lot more than I do, but some recollections and
context:

--They were well organized meetings, chaired by Vint.  Most attendees were
funded by Arpa, working directly on the projects.
--This started in the TCP-era, pre-TCP/IP.
--There were, at that time, two sets of meetings:  Internet meetings and
TCP meetings.
--In general, the TCP meetings were focused on specifying and implementing
TCP, and Internet meetings were focused on networks and gateways (PRNet,
SatNet, etc. -- see some of the minutes).
--Notes from both sets of meetings often emerged in the unified series of
Internet Experiment Notes.
--In some cases the two meetings were on adjacent days, with some number of
people attending both.
--Thus, there was sometimes important "spill over" from one meeting to the
next.

--Famously, in late Jan./early Feb. 1978 there were back-to-back meetings
in LA, at ISI.
--The first was a TCP meeting, documented by Jon Postel (but, for some
reason, assigned an IEN number much later, #67).  There were many status
reports, and comments on many subjects.  Danny Cohen talked about packet
service for voice; that and fragmentation issues helped precipitate an
important conversation about the structure of TCP.
--From Postel's agenda and notes about the first day:
"Discuss the multidestination and broadcast topic, set up a working
group on it, and introduce the issue of incorporating a datagram
mode and an emmission control mode of operation into TCP."
"Introduction and Objectives -- Cerf.
The main objective is to get TCP-3 straightened out, and to discuss
extensions."
"Cohen -- Uses this time to complain about TCP-3 becoming all things to all
people.  Also illustration of the approach to voice service via an
"unreliability" package on top of TCP."  [Danny at his best, using humor
and sarcasm to make his point.]
"Fragmentation Issues and Choices -- Cerf.
Vint proposes that fragmentation be removed from TCP and be designated an
internet protocol task.  John Shoch presented a brief summary of his memo
on this topic.  A working group is to resolve this issue on Tuesday."
"NSW Protocols and their Requirements -- Thomas.
...There was some discussion of how TCP could help and how MSG could use a
datagram mode."
--On the second day of the TCP meeting there were working groups in the
morning, and reports after lunch:
"(b) Fragmentation -- Cerf
This group had a lengthly [sic] discussion.  One immediate result was the
decision to remove fragmentation from TCP and place it in the internet
protocol."

--The Internet meeting convened the following day, Feb. 1, 1978, again at
ISI.  It was also documented by Jon Postel, in IEN #22.
--The minutes of the prior TCP meeting show 22 attendees.  The minutes of
the Internet meeting, on the 3rd day, show 26 attendees -- 13 of whom had
been at the prior TCP meeting.
"Introduction and Objectives -- Cerf
Vint primarily presented a summary of the results of the TCP meeting
which took place the preceding two days.
The main result is a decision not to extend the TCP to include
alternate modes of service, and instead to provide for a set of
parallel protocols that all utilize a common "datagram" type internet
protocol. The functions of the internet layer would be addressing
and fragmentation. ..."
"Other TCP meeting results were a decision to revise the TCP3
specification to correct minor points, and sometime in the future to
undertake a major revision of the documentation."
--That, of course, eventually led to the design and specification of the
now-split architecture, TCP4 and IP4.

As I said, "that's how the sausage got made....."

John Shoch


Message: 2
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2025 19:06:56 -0500 (EST)
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: [ih] Correct name for early TCP/IP working group?
Message-ID: <20250125000656.0514D18C083 at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>

    > so there were a few groups. ... the leads formed the Internet
    > Configuration Control Board (ICCB)

Right, but the ICCB was formed in about 1979. I have created a list of the
early meetings (starting in 1977), here:

  https://gunkies.org/wiki/TCP_and_Internet_Meetings

and there were about a dozen over two years before that - most of the ones
in
that list were of the body I'm asking about.

I'm not sure it was a formal group; it was basically just your DARPA
contractors on the project. So maybe it didn't have a formal name. (If so,
maybe we should make one up! :-)

        Noel