[ih] Internet Talk Radio

Wed Jul 22 16:44:40 PDT 2026

Interesting, another part of Internet History.   I didn't know about the 
Paris show, but I did later help with a show (probably Oracle's "User 
Group" annual event) at Place de la Defense.   A bunch of us almost got 
lost trying to take public transportation from there to visit the 
Louvre, and with only high-school French in our group we came very close 
to ending up in Louvre, France, which is a town quite a distance from 
the Museum.

I've always thought of Interop as the "marketing department" of The 
Internet.  I knew Dan from his previous career when he ran the 
datacenter at USC, where lots of ARPA work was carried out.  At one 
point I recall that Interop started using a catchphrase of "I know it 
works; I saw it at Interop!"  Then at the shows I saw that working in 
real time on the show floor.  A horde of people would descend on a 
booth, consisting of the VPs (in suits) and the techies (in jeans and 
sweatshirts).  The Suits would listen to the pitch, and turn to their 
techies to get confirmation that whatever was being sold was a good idea 
for their company.  The Suits had an environment being deluged with 
personal computers, workstations, and LANs, and still had their 
mainframes too.  The Internet tied it all together, and could be 
observed actually working on the Interop floor.   Everyone was tired of 
single-vendor designs and waiting for OSI to make it all wonderful.  
  TCP worked, you could see it, you could buy it, and all your new hires 
likely had experience with it already.   Interop brought all that 
together and connected the techies to the suits to the vendors - i.e., 
the Marketing Department.

After I left BBN and joined Oracle in 1990, I was local to Silicon 
Valley, and Dan recruited me to be on some Interop committee ("Program 
Committee?" can't remember).  The committee got involved in figuring out 
what sessions and tutorials would be selected, and our vetting focussed 
on presenters that were techies rather than marketers.  I think that 
made a difference in the attendance, encouraging techies to come to 
learn, and bring their suits as well to "see it working at Interop".   I 
recall going with Dan to meet the people who ran Moscone and being 
disappointed when they said Interop wasn't big enough to book Moscone.  
Several years later I recall another meeting with the Moscone management 
to inform them that the next Interop would be too big for Moscone and 
would be held in Las Vegas instead.  The Internet was growing 
explosively and so was Interop.

Fun times.   The history of Interop is an important part of the History 
of The Internet.

/Jack Haverty

On 7/22/26 15:48, Carl Malamud wrote:
> The Paris show was scheduled to be announced and the marketing people 
> decided they had to have a video so they could show the people of 
> france what this was all about. Ole hired a camera crew in San 
> Francisco and we stalked the halls with the video camera looking for 
> people like you. :) I got to play a role in the subsequent show, which 
> was held at La Defence (near the arch!). We were, as was the usually 
> case in those days, the first network ever held in that convention 
> center (we did the same thing at Moscone center). French was my 
> maternal language and I also spoke geek fluently, so I remember 
> helping defuse a big showdown between NOC team members and the 
> convention center security team. I wasn't Interop staff or anything 
> official, wasn't even a member of the noc team, was actually just a 
> freelance writer at the time but there weren't a lot of other press 
> following this, so I had great access.
>
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 2:44 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history 
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>     Wow, Thanks Carl!   Just out of curiousity, I found the "Interop
>     Movie"
>     that was filmed at Interop in San Francisco in 1992, but I guess was
>     shown later at Interop France.  I had never seen that movie until
>     just
>     now, and was surprised to find that I'm in it!
>
>     That was the year that Oracle took the MazeWars game to Interop
>     and it
>     seems at some point someone stuck a video camera in my face to hear
>     about what we were doing at Oracle.   I don't remember that, and
>     didn't
>     even recognize myself at first -- until my name appeared on the
>     screen.
>     The memories of that show are a bit fuzzy.  But I seemed to be fairly
>     articulate, even after spending my first and only 96-hour period
>     with no
>     sleep, working before the show opened on getting everything to work
>     (along with a bunch of other sleep-deprived Oracle engineers).
>
>     A true historical resource at archive.org <http://archive.org>!
>
>     /Jack Haverty
>
>
>     On 7/22/26 14:11, Carl Malamud via Internet-history wrote:
>     > :) thanks Brian. Here’s a pointer to the full collection:
>     >
>     >
>     https://archive.org/details/RT-FM?sort=date&and%5B%5D=subject%3A%22Publications%22
>     <https://archive.org/details/RT-FM?sort=date&and%5B%5D=subject%3A%22Publications%22>
>     >
>     > On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 1:55 PM Brian E Carpenter via
>     Internet-history <
>     > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>     >
>     >> I just realised what a fantastic historical resource Carl
>     Malamud created:
>     >>
>     >> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>     >> Subject: Re: the dangers of April Fool's RFCs....
>     >> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:53:28 +1200
>     >> From: Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com>
>     >> To: Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net>, IETF discussion list <
>     >> ietf at ietf.org>
>     >>
>     >> Craig,
>     >>
>     >> BTW, it was probably about a year after April 1, 1992 that Carl
>     Malamud
>     >> started Internet Talk Radio and Geek of the Week. Milo Medin
>     was the first
>     >> geek, interview published May 7, 1993. Carl interviewed quite a
>     number of
>     >> geeks during IETF 27 (Amsterdam, July 1983).
>     >>
>     >> See
>     https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Internet+Talk+Radio%22
>     >>
>     >> The point is: things move fast on the Internet.
>     >>
>     >> Regards/Ngā mihi
>     >>       Brian Carpenter
>     >>
>     >> On 23-Jul-26 07:23, Craig Partridge wrote:
>     >>> Dan Harkin wrote:
>     >>>   > You know, I wrote an April Fools I-D suggesting this sort
>     of thing
>     >>> to ensure diversity and I got in trouble!
>     >>>
>     >>> And I wrote an April Fools RFC (1313) that posited the notion
>     of a radio
>     >> station broadcasting audio over the Internet, an outlandish
>     idea we now
>     >> call podcasting!
>     >>> We should, perhaps, compose an (?April Fools?) RFC on the
>     hazards of
>     >> April Fools RFCs becoming reality.
>     >>> Craig
>     >>>
>     >>>
>     >>>
>     >>> --
>     >>> *****
>     >>> Craig Partridge's email account for professional society
>     activities and
>     >> mailing lists.
>     >> --
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>
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