Correction of my last two comments "the net"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: September 12, 2009 6:36:21 PM EDT
To: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Cc: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>, Dan Lynch <dan () lynch com>,  
Dave Crocker <dcrocker () bbiw net>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () v2 listbox com 
>, Gordon Peterson <gep2 () terabites com>, John Shoch <shoch () alloyventures com 
>, Harold Burstyn <burstynh () iname com>, Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com 
>, Paul Robichaux <paul () robichaux net>, Steve Crocker <steve () shinkuro com 
>
Subject: Correction of my last two comments [IP] "the net"

Oops.  Vint Cerf pointed out to me that in fact NCP is the wrong term  
for what I'm referring to.  The historically correct term was "RFC1822  
host-imp protocol."  [I should be more careful - my excuse, which is  
not a reason, is that I was NOT involved in developing ARPANET  
protocol stacks (I used them) - the Multics one was done while I was  
working on my S.M thesis on another aspect of Multics, by my friends  
Ken Pogran, Doug Wells, and Deborah Thomas, as I recall.]

But we are observing an odd evolution of terminology here: NCP was not  
a term used to refer to a protocol.  NCP was an endpoint program that  
operated in each host.  It stood for Network Control Program (NOT  
Network Control Protocol).  [Citation: ARPANET PROTOCOL HANDBOOK,  
"Host-to-Host Protocol" NIC 8246, October 1977].  The "Host to Host  
Protocol" was an out-of-band protocol used to set up RFC1822  
connections between hosts, by assigning and managing links.

TCP ran over dedicated RFC1822 "links".  It did not, however, use the  
facilities of the Host-to-Host protocol.

Slang in the ARPANET community later started to use the term NCP  
(incorrectly) to refer to the RFC1822 protocols when they were under  
the management of the ARPANET Host-to-HOST protocol.

This unfortunately is reflected in the Wikipedia entry for NCP!    
Wikipedia is defining a "slang" term as if it were the "real thing".   
Historically (as of 1978) this is inaccurate.

I apologize to the historians and to those of my contemporaries who  
are probably embarrassed for me.  I'm embarrassed to not have checked  
this out.

However, my primary point absolutely stands:  TCP was not a  
replacement for NCP.  Nor was it a replacement for the Host-to-Host  
Protocol.  The Host-to-Host protocol became obsolete.  That is not  
because TCP was substituted for it, however - TCP had been alive for  
years, grown more and more capable, and finally any reason for  
continuing to use the Host-to-host protocol within the relatively tiny  
ARPANET itself evaporated.  The world had already passed it by.









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