[ih] IPv8...

[Dave McGuire]

On 4/21/26 13:20, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> Can anyone summarize the history of the *use* of "multicast" in The 
> Internet?  I know the various protocols and such are probably well 
> described in publications such as RFCs and research reports, but I'm 
> wondering about the historical timeline of the actual implementation and 
> use of multicast in the Internet we have all used for years or decades now.
> 
> For example, I remember the "Mbone" which was used for lots of 
> experimentation in the 1980s.     IIRC, Mbone had some kind of support 
> for multicast, and required that routers along the path you were using 
> through the Internet had to have implemented the protocols and 
> algorithms for the multicast mechanisms of the time. This affected 
> activities such as the various projects experimenting with interactive 
> voice over the Internet in the 1980s.   The Mbone was in effect a subset 
> of The Internet.

   Please forgive me for jumping in.  I can offer a brief account from a 
purely practical standpoint.

   At Digex in the early 1990s we experimented heavily with Multicast 
and DVMRP on the Mbone.  On our workstations (all SPARC machines running 
SunOS4) at the office, at home, and at other sites, all had multicast IP 
configured.  We had to apply kernel patches and run mrouted.

   It all worked pretty well, though we did submit a few bugfix patches 
here and there.

   We made heavy use of "wb", a program which implemented a shared 
whiteboard.  It was surprisingly responsive and usable; we used it 
heavily to brainstorm ideas, discuss configurations, everything for 
which one might use a physical whiteboard, but we didn't have to be in 
the same room.  It was great, and very practical.  We all loved it.

   I also remember the "sdr" (session directory) program which worked 
well.  There was also an audio conferencing tool called "vat", which we 
played with but didn't use much in our day-to-day work.

   There was a garage band called Severe Tire Damage who would "stream" 
(what we'd call it today) their shows about once per week.  A bunch of 
us would get pizza and beer and watch religiously.  Although the 8-bit, 
8kHz mono audio on the SPARCstations of the day left a bit to be 
desired, we were still amazed that it worked at all.  I believe the name 
of the Mbone-based video streaming program was "vic".

   The memory is hazy but I think this would've been late 1993, into 1994.

   I started some research on this last summer (including in the dark 
recesses of my own memory) as I thought about getting some of it running 
again on exhibit systems at LSSM, but I didn't get very far before I had 
to work on more demanding projects.  I would still like to resurrect 
some of it at some point.  I have the sources for the SunOS4 kernel 
patches and most of the utilities in my own archives.

            -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
President/Curator, Large Scale Systems Museum
New Kensington, PA