[ih] Host-Host vs NCP (Was Re: Confusion in the RFCs)

[John Day]

;-) It looks like one of *those* deliverables (you know what I mean) put into a contract that we would have considered ‘make-work’ for the bureaucrats.  ;-)  But like I said, there is an important result in it.

> On Sep 5, 2025, at 11:34, Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com> wrote:
> 
> John,
> 
> Thanks!  I don't think I ever saw that survey.  October 1974 was an interesting time for me.  I had finished three years at DARPA, where my primary focus was on AI, not networking.  I had gotten married in September and was on an extended vacation/honeymoon and cross country to move to ISI.  We were on the road for about six weeks, from mid September to early November.  And when I arrived at ISI, I plunged directly into formal methods.
> 
> The division of Network Control Programs into big and little and their correlation to the quality of existing interprocess communication facilities seems exactly right to me.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2025 at 10:59 AM John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> Well, a little earlier but indicates it was in wide use prior to Oct 74.
>> 
>> Postel, J. B., Survey of Network Control Programs in the ARPA Computer Network, MITRE Technical Report #6722, October 1974, Revision 1, 89 pp.
>> 
>> BTW, this is a very important document. There is an important result in it even though Jon didn’t note it . 
>> 
>> Reading it is clear that NCPs fall into two categories: big and little. The difference was those OSs with good IPC had small NCP implementations.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> > On Sep 5, 2025, at 10:45, John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> > 
>> > So, you are saying that NCP didn’t come into use until 74-76? First TCP spec I saw was in mid-75.
>> > 
>> > I can’t cite anything off the top of my head but I think it was in use well before that.
>> > Someone else will remember.
>> > John
>> > 
>> >> On Sep 5, 2025, at 10:40, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> >> 
>> >>> From: Steve Crocker
>> >> 
>> >>> Somewhere along the way, people repurposed "NCP" to mean Network
>> >>> Control *Protocol*
>> >> 
>> >> When there was only one protocol stack running on the ARPANET (HHP et al), it
>> >> didn't need a name. When the second one (TCP/IP) appeared, we needed names
>> >> for each, and we started using 'NCP' as the name for the first one ('NCP' was
>> >> sort of in use already to refer to that collection of things, as the name for
>> >> the software that implemented it), and backronymed it to the more
>> >> sensible/appropriate 'Network Control Protocol'.
>> >> 
>> >> Fun fact: the CHAOS people at MIT retained, for some years, 'NCP', and the
>> >> old expansion of it, as the name for the CHAOS protocol implementation; for
>> >> example, see:
>> >> 
>> >> https://github.com/bill790/chaos/blob/master/ncp.c
>> >> 
>> >>      Noel
>> >> -- 
>> >> Internet-history mailing list
>> >> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> >> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> >> -
>> >> Unsubscribe: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
>> > 
>> > -- 
>> > Internet-history mailing list
>> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> > -
>> > Unsubscribe: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
>> 
>> -- 
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> -
>> Unsubscribe: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
> 
> 
> 
> --
>