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

[Alexander McKenzie]

Barbara,

The routers BBN built were built under government contract and would have
been relatively expensive to replicate, and hard to support. BBN
management was not interested in productizing them because they thought
they would be low profit compared to PSNs, and that there would be a small
market.  Some BBNers including Steve Blumenthal, Bob Hinden, and myself
tried to convince them the market for PSN's would dry up and the market for
routers would be very large, but we were unsuccessful. By the time the
writing was on the wall clearly enough for the management to read it Cisco
was well established and no one building a system wanted to take a chance
on a BBN competitor.  We even tried giving them away to an NSF regional but
were turned down.

Cheers,
Alex

On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 4:15 PM Alex McKenzie <amckenzie3 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> *From:* Barbara Denny via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> *To:* internet-history at elists.isoc.org <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 30, 2025 at 04:08:32 PM EDT
> *Subject:* Re: [ih] Cisco origins (Was: when did APRANET -TIPs become
> known as -TACs)
>
> Any comments about why the BBN router didn't seem to become a part of this
> story? I have heard but haven't been able to confirm that 3com also had a
> router product at this point in time.  Then I think there was also
> Wellfleet.  Did you find these routers weren't suitable?
> I remember asking for a router build but I don't remember what I had
> planned to do with it.  It may have been just for use in the lab (and maybe
> had something to do with Ethernet interfaces if that makes sense). It is
> cool you found the request.
> barbara
>     On Tuesday, September 30, 2025 at 11:53:52 AM PDT, Guy Almes via
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>
> Noel,
>   Thanks.  So early 1984.
>
> All,
>   The timeline seems roughly as follows:
> <> very early 1980s: Andy Bechtolsheim designs the 68000-based workstation
> <> 1983-84: challenged by Ralph Gorin, director of Stanford's computer
> facilities, a team adapts the workstation, minus bit-mapped display but
> plus 3Mbps Ethernet cards, to become a router referred to as the Blue
> Box.  William Yeager is generally credited as providing the software.
> This router software, interestingly, is multi-protocol with at least
> both IP and PUP supported.
> <> spring 1984: Noel infects Len Bosack with routers like the Blue Box
> becoming a serious product
> <> December 1984: cisco is incorporated by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner
> <> 1985: Stanford formalizes the "Stanford University Network".  With a
> mandate for the network to be IP-only, Len Bosack and Kirk Lougheed take
> over the software from Yeager.
> <> 1985: Len asks Stanford for permission to commercialize the Blue
> Boxes.  Stanford says 'no'.
> <> So by late 1985, Blue Boxes are proliferating on the Stanford campus
> and cisco is building a few despite Stanford's 'no'.
> <> 1986: more Blue Boxes on campus and also cisco productizing them.  As
> Stanford staff, Len and Kirk are improving the Blue Box software by day
> and, as cisco, are continuing to improve that same software by night.
> Les Earnest, Len's boss at Stanford Computer Science, finds out about it
> and confronts Len.  There may be multiple versions of what happens next,
> but before long Len and Kirk only work for cisco.
> <> spring 1987: cisco and Stanford come to an amicable arrangement.
> This arrangement removed what would otherwise have been an obstacle to
> universities and others buying the resulting cisco AGS router.
>
>   This timing is interesting to me, partly because, it meant that cisco
> routers were available, with pretty good maturity and with no legal
> cloud, in time for several NSFnet-related regional networks, such the
> Sesquinet effort at Rice University where I was at the time.
>
>   The NSFnet networks (not the backbone, but the regionals and the
> campuses) were able to grow explosively, in part, due to the
> availability of two good routers, the majority from Proteon and a
> smaller number (initially) from cisco.
>
>   In this cast of characters, several contributed to the Internet in a
> variety of ways, but the little drama and solid innovation at Stanford
> played a very key role.
>   None of this is new.
>   But for reasons that relate largely to the legal dispute, tellings of
> the story often suppressed to avoid embarrassing a major corporation.
>
>   I'd be interested in any corrections or improvements to the outline
> above.
>     -- Guy
>
> On 9/30/25 12:59 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> > > 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
>
>
>
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