Re: Internet still reshaping history

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
Date: September 7, 2009 8:05:25 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Internet still reshaping history

Dave - for IP if you wish.

The establishment view on the origin of the Internet is not correct.  
If we understand the Internet as a network with a virtual circuit  
transport protocol layered on top of a datagram protocol at the  
network layer, it was reduced to practice in France in the CYCLADES  
network in 1973 (see: The CYCLADES Computer Network, L. Pouzin co- 
author and ed., North Holland 1982, ISBN: 0 444 86482 2.) The  
transport protocol was called TS and the datagram protocol was called  
CIGALE. CYCLADES covered all the research centers in France and was  
ultimately connected to the UK and other points in Europe.

Wisely, Cerf appropriated the architecture of CYCLADES, as did the  
designers of DECnet. And Cerf makes no bones about it, as you'll see  
in the references to Louis Pouzin, the inventor of CYCLADES, other  
members of his team, and common advisers at BBN in Cerf and Kahn's  
first paper on TCP in 1974 and the first TCP RFC, co-authored by Cerf,  
Sunshine, and Dalal, also in 1974. By the 1980s, Internet people  
mysteriously stopped giving credit to CYCLADES. For the timeline, TCP  
and IP weren't even separate entities on paper until what, 1975-6? And  
in code somewhat later...

So it was actually the team at IRIA in France, headed by Louis Pouzin  
and working closely with BBN, who first reduced internetworking to  
practice.

That is, unless you don't count the gateway between ARPANET and ALOHA  
as an example of internetworking. Xerox also did some interesting  
things with datagram protocols in this era, PUP, but their lawyers  
didn't want too many people knowing what they were doing.

I think the idea that the ARPANET was an early-stage Internet comes  
about because the hardware and comms infrastructure that made ARPANET  
work was later appropriated by the TCP/IP Internet. In some places, it  
was just a software upgrade that turned an ARPANET IMP into an IP  
router, and people continued to use the name "ARPANET" for many years  
after TCP came along.

These anniversary stories (several are circulating now, based on an AP  
story) are pretty aggressive in promoting the claim that Len Kleinrock  
invented packet-switching, the ARPANET, and the Internet. Old-timers  
are aware that there's a lot of controversy around these claims, some  
of it captured in the Donald Davies paper "An Historical Study of the  
Beginnings of Packet Switching" (The Computer Journal, Vol. 44, No. 3,  
British Computer Society, 2001). He's pretty persuasive that the  
honors for packet-switching belong to Paul Baran and himself.  
Kleinrock did very interesting work on queuing theory, but that's not  
packet-switching.

There's also a suggestion that the folks at UCLA (or the NWG in  
general) built the ARPANET, but we know that the code in the IMP was  
all written by the BBN folks, Dave Walden and colleagues, and the NWG  
contribution was limited to the Host-Host protocol. The plan for the  
ARPANET, functions of the IMP, deployment, pricing, etc, was done by  
Larry Roberts, who presented it at a very interesting ACM conference  
in Gatlinburg, TN, in 1967; See:  Lawrence G. Roberts, “Multiple  
Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication,” ACM Symposium on  
Operating Systems Principles, Proceedings of the first ACM symposium  
on Operating System Principles, New York: ACM, 1967. Pg 3.1-3.6.

The thing that showed up in the UCLA lab in 1969 is what Roberts calls  
"ARPA II;" ARPA I was a packet-based timesharing system construct - a  
paper network - devised by J. C. R. Licklider in 1962-64. See:  
Lawrence G. Roberts, "The evolution of packet switching," Proceedings  
of the IEEE , vol.66, no.11, pp. 1307-1313, Nov. 1978. Licklider's  
theoretical work inspired Roberts to build ARPA II and Davies to build  
the packet network at NPL in the UK.

The Jan 1, 1983 event wasn't all that significant since much of the  
ARPANET had already converted to TCP/IP; this was simply the date when  
NCP was turned off (although it wasn't; like all schedules, it slipped.)

Just  a few random thoughts I had handy on this fine holiday.

RB

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> Date: September 6, 2009 9:18:35 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Internet still reshaping history
>
> The Internet, which was the idea that there could be one single  
> interoperable network that transcended all others, was invented by  
> Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf.   Others were involved - the idea of  
> "internetworking" was flowering, but the timing was very clear - it  
> happened in the middle of the decade of the '70's.  That was when  
> the idea was reduced to practice.
>
> It is true that in 1967-68, Taylor and Licklider wrote about a  
> "network of networks" - this was a brilliant concept, but it was not  
> yet reduced to practice.  Taylor and Licklider based their vision on  
> the "mother of all demos" done by Doug Englebart at SRI.
>
> Indeed, the idea of information sharing goes back farther.   Project  
> MAC and the idea of a time-sharing system that allowed informatino  
> sharing in a utility goes back to John McCarthy.
>
> However, the idea that the ARPANET was an "Internet" is pretty  
> wrong.   It was one of the threads creating the opportunity for the  
> Internet.  But, if you want to find the beginning of packet-based  
> communications, why not look at Sussenguth's commercialization of  
> IBM's SNA.   Packets, of course, are not "internetworking".
>
> The real problem with these "anniversaries" is that the idea of a  
> big "ah-ha" by one lone inventor is the kind of stupid history that  
> gets promoted by people who are too invested in their egos.   Almost  
> every good idea is the evolutionary result of many, ,many progenitors.
>
> On 09/06/2009 04:42 PM, David Farber wrote:
> > Why do people say the internet is 40 years old. Is the Arpanet the  
> > Internet -- I think not. djf
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Suzanne Johnson <fuhn () pobox com>
> > Date: September 6, 2009 4:38:05 PM EDT
> > To: Dave () farber net
> > Subject: Internet still reshaping history
> >
> >
> >
> > At 40, the Internet still reshaping history
> > by Stephen Shankland
> >
> > At the time, it would have been hard to predict which of these  
> > events 40 years ago would prove to be most momentous:
> >
> > * Humans step out of a spaceship and walk on the moon.
> > * The Woodstock concert becomes a seminal cultural moment for the  
> > baby-boomer generation.
> > * A New York City police raid leads to the Stonewall riots and  
> > modern gay-rights movement.
> > * A handful of engineers at UCLA send some data from one computer  
> > to another.
> >
> > You may disagree, but in my opinion, it's the last of the list:  
> > four decades ago today, the Internet was born.
> > ....clip......
> >
> > http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10323175-264.html?tag=rtcol;inTheNewsNow
> >
> >
> >
> >
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--
Richard Bennett
Research Fellow
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Washington, DC




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