[ih] Cisco origins (Was: when did APRANET -TIPs become known as -TACs)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Guy Almes

    > Also, do you remember when the visit to Stanford that you described
    > here took place?

No, but there are some original contemporary clues that _might_ let us take a
guess at about when it might have been. I say 'might' because I was in and
out of Stanford back then a fair amount, tweaking on 'Golden', along with
some other stuff going on (below) - and I have no idea _which_ Sanford visit
it occurred on, although I can rule one out. (Readers who aren't interested
in the gory details should skip to the bottom paragraphs.)


First, I got caught in INS paperwork in (I think) late 1982, and spent a good
chunk of time out of the US (first in Antigua, and later in Bermuda) waiting
for my permanent residency paperwork to come through. My vague memory
(supplemented by the log below - my initial memory had some errors) is that
the Stanford-MIT connection was starting while I was gone, and I started to
work on it again after I came back.

I also did some consulting for Bridge (later bought by 3Com), just after I
got back, and my meeting with Len may have happened during that. (I
distinctly recall that to test the Bridge work, since they had no Internet
connection - indeed, no TCP/IP _anything_ - we physically dragged a Bridge
box up to Stanford, and ran a whole bunch of traffic through it, after which
the Bridge people were able to verify that my code had no memory leaks. It
definitely wasn't that visit, though.) I did also go to Stanford on my own
for some testing, prior to that.

I'm too lazy to go find the Bridge paperwork (which I do still have), but an
old passport reveals that I got my permanent residency in February, 1984. (I
was back in the US for a short priod in the summer of 1983, too.)


Second, looking through the filesystem of the MIT-CSR machine (which I was
clever enough to save), I find a file with the following fragmentary notes
about Golden (I also see that in March, 1984 Liza Martin built a C Gateway
for Barbara :-):

  /* History of changes to Golden Gate config. */

  Who     When    What
  Bob     8/17    Added fix for Apranet deafness bug, made load module start
		  in CGW rather than DDT, made ISI the default gateway rather
		  than BBN.
  Bob     8/19    Rebuilt to use inga.h.
  jnc     9/14    Removed ETHWCH (claimed not needed), removed logger (not
		  working), added MOSDDT, made MILSRI the default gateway,
		  made MONTR output to console automatically on startup,
		  redid inga organization, put in version II KPALV (not
		  yet tested, though), minor cosmetic changes to some
		  error messages, real fix to ARPANet DMA board output
		  hangup
  jnc     9/16    Adjusted static buffer allocations, made larger buffers,
		  changed build files to be able to build versions with
		  and without DDT
  Bob     10/25   Modified infwd.c to drop packets that try to broadcast
		  out the same interface they arrived on.
		  Modified amakgat files to include local infwd.o, this should
		  be removed after testing.
  Bob     11/29   Added Interland interface.  Installed infwd.c, removed
		  makgat files.
  Bob     1/28/84 Included Mogul's moseth-1 to fix back-to-back packets using
		  hardware timer.  Also installed a new inga.t and su-inga.h.
  jnc     2/3/84  Diked MOSDDT and symbol table tro give more buffers.
		  Use the 'nost' option to makgg, which calls samakgat.
  jnc     14/4/84 Fixed to load with IN cataclysym.
  jnc     25/4/84 Added default subnet gateway in IN.

Another file (a copy of the 3Mbit Ethernet interface driver, which Jeff
Mogul, before this from MIT, at this time of Stanford) reveals that the first
few entries here, which have no year, are 1983. Note the "Added Interlan[]
interface"; looking at the early configuration files, Golden originally had
only a 3Mbit Ethernet interface (the Xerox board). So the Interlan 10Mbit
board (the first 10Mbit Ethernet board available for the PDP-11) was only
added in November, 1983.

Note also the "Diked MOSDDT and symbol table t[]o give more buffers." Early
versions of the C Gateway kept everything in the low 56KB; I later modified
the code to use the PDP-11 memory mapping, in a primitive way, to keep the
buffers themselves in high memory - after which there was plenty of low
memory -> no need to skimp on it. I _think_ Stanford got that - but I am not
certain. (I'm pretty sure that work was all done on the Proteon time-sharing
machine, which is long gone, alas.)


So, which Stanford visit was it? I'm quite sure I had my 'mucho $$$ in
routers' brainwave on the beach in Antigua - i.e. early in 1983. I think I
told Len about it fairly early - so probably in early 1984, when I was at
Stanford, as part of the Bridge project. But don't rely too hard on that.

It would be interesting if someone asked Len if he remembers that. It's quite
possible that he genuinely doesn't; memory is odd, that way. _I_ remember it,
I think, because I have often thought of it - especially soon after it
happened, because Cisco was such tough competition for Proteon.

	Noel