[ih] Postel's work history

[Steve Crocker]

Lyman,

Thanks!  I was about to send a follow up note re Keydata.

The PDP-15 was for a data management system inside DARPA.  It held copies
of the contracts and management reports.  The system was a one-off system
developed by Keydata under contract through our office (IPTO).  It was an
interactive, time-shared system, and the agency director, Steve Lukasik,
had direct access to it.

Prior to the creation of that system, all of the tracking of contract
status, expenditures, etc were done through a DoD system at Cameron
Station, somewhere near the Pentagon.  Paper reports arrived monthly.  In
addition to changing the timeliness of reports, it also disrupted the flow
of control.  One day I got a call from the director asking why contractor X
hadn't submitted any quarterly reports in the last few years.  Prior to the
creation of the Keydata system, if the director had been interested in past
quarterly reports, he would have asked someone.  In the process of asking,
we would have become aware of the situation and we would likely have
reached out to the contractor with an urgent request/demand for updates.

We had a TIP in the agency, so connecting the PDP-15 as a host was a
natural step.  And Jon was just the right person to help Keydata add
support for NCP and Telnet to the Keydata operating system.

Steve


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On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 8:46 AM Lyman Chapin via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> A quick search shows that the CV is also online at
> https://www.postel.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2023/07/postel-cv-1997.txt
>
> - Lyman
>
> > On Nov 7, 2026, at 8:08 AM, vinton cerf via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > Can any of you help to recreate Jon Postel's work history?
> >
> > UCLA - 1967(?) - 1972 (?)
> > SRI XXXX-XXXX
> > <unknown>
> > USC-ISI XXXX - 1998
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > vint
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