1983 and Internet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Craig Partridge <craig () aland bbn com>
Date: September 14, 2009 10:29:18 AM EDT
To: Dave CROCKER <dcrocker () bbiw net>
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>, Steve Crocker  
<steve () shinkuro com>
Cc: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
Cc: Gordon Peterson <gep2 () terabites com>
Cc: John Shoch <shoch () alloyventures com>, Harold Burstyn <burstynh () iname com 
>
Cc: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>, Paul Robichaux <paul () robichaux net 
>
Subject: 1983 and Internet


Minor data point:

I showed up at BBN in the fall of 1983 and the January 1983 change over
was still remembered as "carnage".  Apparently a number of sites had not
really prepared to be cut over and/or were running TCP/IP as a non- 
critical
system.

The CSNET project, in particular, remembered that because they'd  
prepared
carefully and had an TCP/IP SMTP server that worked pretty well, a  
number of
folks fixed initial email problems by forwarding all their outbound  
email
to the CSNET relay and letting CSNET sort it out...  Of course, the  
CSNET
relay software was not so mature that it took this sort of abuse  
easily and
so the CSNET folks spent many sleepless nights desperately propping the
system up.  (To help explain -- the 'net and computers were still slow  
enough
that you could manually move queuing files around safely to cause  
certain email
messages to be delayed/sped up/queued in a different place while the  
system
was running -- yanking a problem email out of the queue and manually  
editing
its routing was a crucial skill)

Craig

> Most inventions fail, so it's worth noting when a critical  
> success=20=20
> milestone is achieved.  I don't have a good suggestion for=20=20
> terminological distinctions for the markers, but think that the=20=20
> differences between Internet invention (1974), testing (1976)  
> and=20=20
> production (1983) are essential.
>
> Having not participated in any of these milestones, I could  
> easily=20=20
> believe that the production one actually occurred earlier.  As  
> noted,=20=20
> 1983 marked a removal of Arpanet Host-to-Host protocol service,  
> not=20=20
> the start of TCP/IP as a production service.




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