[ih] Fw: First ARPANET Link Put Into Service: November 21, 1969

[Steve Crocker]

If "Telnet" is meant to refer to the use of the Telnet protocol, I think
the answer is no.  I don't think we had implementations of Telnet until
sometime later.  One important date for Telnet was the bake-off at MIT in
October 1971.  Representatives from each Arpanet site attempted to log into
each other Arpanet site.  The results were impressive.  A physically large
matrix was filled in.  There were gpas, but with the exception of one site,
the connectivity was pretty good.  (The software at that one site wasn't
ready, so its column and row in the matrix were empty.)

If "Telnet" is meant to refer to the very first attempt to log into SRI
from UCLA, that was indeed Oct 29, 1969 and did indeed result in the crash.

Thinking a bit harder, Nov 21, 1969 may have been the day Larry Roberts
came to UCLA, and we may have demonstrated the ability to log into SRI from
UCLA.  It would have been the same software that was used on Oct 29 except
with additional buffer space at SRI to accommodate its multi-character
response to a single character, e.g. "GIN" in response to the "G" after LO.

Steve


On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 3:22 PM Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 22-Nov-25 06:59, Alexander McKenzie via Internet-history wrote:
> > Note that the phone line was installed and operational in October
> (October
> > 29, 1969).  This has nothing to do with November 21.
> >
> > In November an IMP (and phone lines) was installed at UCSB.  Perhaps
> that's
> > what this announcement was trying to celebrate? (First possibility of
> > multiple pats between source and destination?)
>
> According to Peter Salus [1] November 21st was "The first Telnet session",
> between SRI and UCLA. Was that the famous L - O - G - crash! session?
>
> Regards/Ngā mihi
>     Brian Carpenter
>
> [1] Peter H. Salus, Casting the Net, Addison-Wesley, 1995, page 55.
>
>
> > Regards,
> > Alex McKenzie
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 12:55 PM Alex McKenzie <amckenzie3 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> >> *From:* Frantisek Borsik via Internet-history <
> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >> *To:* Miles Fidelman via Internet-history <
> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >> *Sent:* Friday, November 21, 2025 at 12:03:21 PM EST
> >> *Subject:* [ih] First ARPANET Link Put Into Service: November 21, 1969
> >>
> >> Happy birthday to the Internet!
> >>
> >> https://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/november/21/
> >>
> >> All the best,
> >>
> >> Frank
> >>
> >> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
> >>
> >>
> >> *In loving memory of Dave Täht: *1965-2025
> >>
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