Re: [TUHS] V6 networking & alarm syscall

[Eric Allman <tuhs@eric.allman.name>]

> Eric, please fill me in.

I have to admit that my memories are a bit fuzzy, but I'll try to fill
in what I can.

On 2019-01-12 9:20 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
...
> FWIW: Since I had been working networking at both CMU and Tek before I
> came to UCB, one of the first things I did when I arrived in fall '81
> was to install the Gurwitz BBN IP/TCP stack on 4.1 so we could run
> Ethernet between the 3 CAD machines in Cory Hall to replace the use of
> BerkNet over 9600 baud serial links (IIRC Eric Cooper, was involved with
> that hack also).   When I had arrived, few machines at UCB were on LANS
> and the need for ARPAnet style networking >>besides<< email was still
> limited.  The way people connected to systems was their terminal was to
> connect over serial links and we had a giant 'plugboard' that allowed
> you patch your terminal into one of the systems [I wonder if there are
> pictures of these somewhere in the UCB archives - it was quite something].

That it was.  When the INGRES group got our ARPAnet connection (VDH to
LBL, as you mentioned) it was the only long-haul connection to campus
that I know of.  Eric Schmidt had done BerkNET, but that was local mail
and file copy only, and BerkNET mail didn't connect to ARPAnet mail, so
there were "plugboard wars" over who got one of the two RS232
connections we had available for outside users (this was out of a grand
total of 16 connections on a DH-11, each at about $1000/port, iirc).  I
was nominally responsible for the ARPAnet connection, so I had senior
faculty on my case about how they all "needed" dedicated connections to
their office (but of course they didn't want to pay for them).  This was
the original inspiration for delivermail, which later became sendmail.

> We had three 780s in the CAD group in Cory and really did not like the
> plugboard scheme. From my previous experience, I wanted something like
> telnet or supdup, like we had been messing with at CMU and Tek.  Hence
> my push to put the BBN code on the CAD systems and use an ethernet.   
> Eric, please fill me in.   You must have been running the BBN code then
> also, since Ing70 and then IngVax were the ArpaNet connection (via
> a VHDH to the LBL IMP - UCB did not yet have its own IMP).   But I know
> the CAD systems 4.1 networking stuff was done by me.

As I recall IngVax never had any ARPAnet service, and Ing70 was running
the NCP code from San Diego, which could well have originated at BB&N,
but I can't confirm that from memory.  Conversely, Ing70 was never on
any "modern" networking technology such as 3Mbit ethernet (I don't think
there were even NICs at that time).

> Its a little fuzzy now, but memory is that Bob Kriddle had run a Xerox 3
> Meg cable in Cory, from my machine room over to the Ingres machine room
> also; but I've forgotten the details.  BerkNet (i.e. serial links)
> allowed email to flow on campus, but I'm thinking we were trying to make
> that both more efficient and allow telnet/ftp [which might not have
> happened until after the C/30 IMP was installed in Evan later).   [Since
> all ARPAnet email followed through IngVax, Eric's history of dealing
> with the header file format of the month in the old delivermail program
> would force his writing sendmail - said history has been repeated here
> and elsewhere previously].

Yes, modulo it being Ing70, not IngVax.

> But this thread got me thinking a little bit.   I've forgotten actual
> LAN topology we had a UCB now. I know from the CAD hosts, we could talk
> to the other hosts in our lab in Cory for sure, I want to say we could
> talk to a few other hosts in Evans and Cory; as I know Sam would give me
> code usually via some type of network connection, although sneaker-net
> with 9-track tapes used a great deal too.   I want to say the connection
> was over Kriddle's 3M Xerox cable (Eric do you remember what you had in
> IngVax in those days).  I know we also a had real 10Meg cable in floor
> our lab in Cory, plus at least one Xerox board on one of the systems,
> another had a DEC interface in it, and Interlan boards in at least two
> others another.   We must have even had a 3Com board in the third
> system; as I remember hacking both the Interlan and 3Com drivers (I had
> written a 3Com driver at Tek previous for VMS.  The Interlan board was
> new, as was the DEC board; but I've forgotten what we got when).     The
> original CAD 780 ('Coke')  must have had multiple interfaces in it, but
> I really don't remember.

You would think I would remember more of the network situation around
the INGRES project given that we had someone working on distributed
databases (Ken Birman, now at Cornell I think, did something called
COCANET).  However, I have no recollection at all about what the
connection actually was.  It might be possible to pull some of Ken's old
papers (late 70s/early 80s) and get more information there.

eric