ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Grant Taylor

    > Does anyone know of a good place to discuss networking history, routing,
    > email, dns, etc.  I'd like to avoid getting too far off topic for TUHS.

You could try the "Internet History mailing list":

  http://www.postel.org/internet-history/

which covers all of networking, including pre-Internet stuff.

      Noel

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Larry McVoy

    >>> I was told, by someone that I don't remember, that uwisc was the 11th
    >>> node on the net. ... If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know.

    > I dunno.

I don't have any axe to grind here. I don't care if they were the first, or
the last. You asked "If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know",
and all I'm trying to do is _accurately_ answer that.


    > That 1985 map has uwisc in there

I have a large collection of ARPANET maps here:

  http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/arpanet.html

and the first one on which UWisc shows up is the October, 1981 geographical
map - over ten years since the ARPANet went up (December, 1969 is the earliest
map I have there).

    > I do know that prior to the net there was uucp

Which "net" are we talking about here? ARPANET? CSNET? Internet? The UUCP network
long post-dated the ARPANET - I think it was started in the late 70's, no?

The earliest Internet map I have is from 1982, here:

  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Internet_map_in_February_82.png

and again UWisc is not on it. (Yes, I know it's on Wikipedia, but I'm the one
who uploaded it, so I can verify it.)


CSNET I don't know much about, that may have been what the comment referred
to.

Wikipedia (for what little we can trust it) says "By 1981, three sites were
connected: University of Delaware, Princeton University, and Purdue
University"; since Lawrence Landweber at UWis was the main driver of CSNET, I
doubt it would have been far behind.

      Noel

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Larry McVoy]

On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 08:57:15AM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Larry McVoy
> 
>     >>> I was told, by someone that I don't remember, that uwisc was the 11th
>     >>> node on the net. ... If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know.
> 
>     > I dunno.
> 
> I don't have any axe to grind here. I don't care if they were the first, or
> the last. You asked "If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know",
> and all I'm trying to do is _accurately_ answer that.
> 
> 
>     > That 1985 map has uwisc in there
> 
> I have a large collection of ARPANET maps here:
> 
>   http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/arpanet.html
> 
> and the first one on which UWisc shows up is the October, 1981 geographical
> map - over ten years since the ARPANet went up (December, 1969 is the earliest
> map I have there).
> 
> Which "net" are we talking about here? ARPANET? CSNET? Internet? The UUCP network
> long post-dated the ARPANET - I think it was started in the late 70's, no?
> 
> The earliest Internet map I have is from 1982, here:
> 
>   https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Internet_map_in_February_82.png
> 
> and again UWisc is not on it. (Yes, I know it's on Wikipedia, but I'm the one
> who uploaded it, so I can verify it.)
> 
> 
> CSNET I don't know much about, that may have been what the comment referred
> to.
> 
> Wikipedia (for what little we can trust it) says "By 1981, three sites were
> connected: University of Delaware, Princeton University, and Purdue
> University"; since Lawrence Landweber at UWis was the main driver of CSNET, I
> doubt it would have been far behind.

Yeah, I bet it was Larry Landweber who told me, so maybe it was CSNET.  I
sent him mail, we'll see if he replies.

--lm

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Larry McVoy

    > I was told, by someone that I don't remember, that uwisc was the 11th
    > node on the net. ... If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know.

There's a copy of the July '77 revision of the HOSTS.TXT file as an appendix
here:

  http://www.walden-family.com/dave/archive/bbn-tip-man.txt

The IMPs are numbered in order of deployment; so UCLA is #1, SRI is #2, Utah
is #4, BBN is #5, etc.

I don't see Wisconsin in the list at all. Maybe the person meant CSNET?

	Noel

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 08:44:02PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Larry McVoy
> 
>     > I was told, by someone that I don't remember, that uwisc was the 11th
>     > node on the net. ... If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love to know.
> 
> There's a copy of the July '77 revision of the HOSTS.TXT file as an appendix
> here:
> 
>   http://www.walden-family.com/dave/archive/bbn-tip-man.txt
> 
> The IMPs are numbered in order of deployment; so UCLA is #1, SRI is #2, Utah
> is #4, BBN is #5, etc.
> 
> I don't see Wisconsin in the list at all. Maybe the person meant CSNET?

I dunno.  That 1985 map has uwisc in there and I know from being there
that they were in because they were doing a lot of useful work, there
was the uwisc-bsd+NFS release, there was the uwisc bsd port to the IBM
rt, I watched Joe Moran do a port of BSD to a 68K in a couple of days
(literally, he stayed up for 2 days and got it to work), uwisc was the
shit back in the day.  I'm not bragging because of me, I was nobody,
but a lot of somebodies came out of uwisc.  Most of them went to Sun.
Joe went on to do the SunOS 4.x VM system which to this day I have not
seen a better one.

So maybe they weren't the 11th IMP on the net.  I dunno, I do know
that someone told me that.

I do know that prior to the net there was uucp and ....!uwisc was a
useful prefix like ...!rutgers and ...!ucbvax.

I think they were in the mix.  11th?  Dunno, just what I've been told.

--lm

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Michael-John Turner]

Hi,

It's not 100% on topic, but I thought this December 1985 ARPANET 
Information Brochure would be of interest to the list:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a164353.pdf

Cheers, MJ 
-- 
Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ 

ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Don Hopkins]

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That episode of “The Americans” sure made it seem to difficult to break into the ARPANET — they had to kill some poor dude who was in the wrong place in the wrong time. 

But in reality they would gladly mail you all those documents by request for a small fee. You just had to ask. And there were no passwords on the TIPs. 

It makes me wonder if you can really pass a polygraph test by tightening your anus. 

-Don

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0pIUvbyvr8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0pIUvbyvr8>


> On 16 Oct 2017, at 17:09, Michael-John Turner <mj at mjturner.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> It's not 100% on topic, but I thought this December 1985 ARPANET Information Brochure would be of interest to the list:
> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a164353.pdf
> 
> Cheers, MJ -- 
> Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ 

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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Don Hopkins]

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> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0>

I love the way that geeky guy smugly rubs his hands together, leans back and chuckles when he say “We have our very own IMP. (Huh, huh huh, sigh.)”

I would totally chuckle that way if I had my own IMP.

-Don

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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Clem Cole]

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Don't forget the cost of the IMP itself was just the beginning.  The fees
to 'TPC' for the 1/2 duplex 9600 serial lines in those days were very, very
expensive.   DARPA paid for them for each site in a large deal it had with
AT&T.    I don't remember where I saw it, but what sticks out in my mind
for those days was that cost of a site (host) on the ARPAnet was approx
$125K / year per host in an ARPA grant.

Which really explains 'security.' In practice nobody was going to risk
letting just anyone hack their system so much that it put the site at
risk.   Truth is we did not try to break in because we all had access, but
if it you needed a $.5-2M PDP-10 to connect to the internet, a free IMP
slot (each IMP supplied 4) and the leases on the wires.  So it was just not
practical to think like we do today, much less act that way.

It was not so much security by obscurity, as security by practical
economics.  Moore's law, Ethernet and cheap processing power is what blow
that up.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Don Hopkins <don at donhopkins.com> wrote:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0
>
>
> I love the way that geeky guy smugly rubs his hands together, leans back
> and chuckles when he say “We have our very own IMP. (Huh, huh huh, sigh.)”
>
> I would totally chuckle that way if I had my own IMP.
>
> -Don
>
>
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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Don Hopkins]

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On 16 Oct 2017, at 18:09, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

Don't forget the cost of the IMP itself was just the beginning.  The fees to 'TPC' for the 1/2 duplex 9600 serial lines in those days were very, very expensive.   DARPA paid for them for each site in a large deal it had with AT&T.    I don't remember where I saw it, but what sticks out in my mind for those days was that cost of a site (host) on the ARPAnet was approx $125K / year per host in an ARPA grant. 

Which really explains 'security.' In practice nobody was going to risk letting just anyone hack their system so much that it put the site at risk.   Truth is we did not try to break in because we all had access, but if it you needed a $.5-2M PDP-10 to connect to the internet, a free IMP slot (each IMP supplied 4) and the leases on the wires.  So it was just not practical to think like we do today, much less act that way.

It was not so much security by obscurity, as security by practical economics.  Moore's law, Ethernet and cheap processing power is what blow that up.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Don Hopkins <don at donhopkins.com <mailto:don at donhopkins.com>> wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVth6T3gMa0>

I love the way that geeky guy smugly rubs his hands together, leans back and chuckles when he say “We have our very own IMP. (Huh, huh huh, sigh.)”

I would totally chuckle that way if I had my own IMP.

-Don


My uncle worked at the German Space Operations Center, which had DATEX-P, so I asked a mailing list about how to connect with him, and got some interesting replies that give a glimpse of the topologies and costs of the time:

-Don

Date: 31-Oct-1986 0451
From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com  (John R. Covert)
To: don at brillig.umd.edu
Subject: Re: datex-p

Datex-P costs money to use.

Go to any VMS system on Telenet running PSI, and send mail to
PSI%26245815390037::USERNAME

You'll have to find someone willing to spend a buck or two for every
message you send.

You had the  breakdown of the address wrong:
2624 is for Germany (Germany leaves the 262 off within the country)
581 is for the town (the same as the telephone code for the major nearby town)
53900 is the site
37 is the subaddress

No free service to X.25 networks, sorry.

/john


Date: Fri, 31 Oct 86 14:13:22 EST
From: rick@seismo.css.gov (Rick Adams)
To: don at brillig.umd.edu
Subject: Re:  datex-p

There is nothing magic about datex-p. Its not a network anymore than C&P telephone is a network. You keep trying to make something special
out of it. Think of datex-p as MCI or ATT or SPRINT. Its just a common carrier.

For about $1500/month you could arrange a tymnet/telenet link at
maryland for them to call up. It would them cost the orignator of the
transmission $12/hour and about $.70 per kilocharacters to connect to you.
—rick


Date:  Fri, 31 Oct 86 10:03 EST
From: John C Klensin <Klensin@mit-multics.arpa>
Subject:  Re: datex-p
To: Don Hopkins <don at brillig.umd.edu>

This is going to get pretty complicated, and I'm at a disadvantage in
not knowing what you know already.  So, I apologize if some of the
following is obvious.  I'm going to try to anticipate questions and
answer then as a possibly-efficient way of doing this.

"...  telnet to the states":  Strictly speaking, no.  X.25 protocols,
not TCP/IP, and I think the Bundespost would have fits if someone
started passing TCP/IP traffic over their network.  Moreover, if anyone
has a VMS VAX in the entire world that is capable of accepting an
incoming X.25/X.29 call and then handling TCP/IP traffic over it, we'd
love to know about it, and how they are doing it.  But, I doubt it:  VAX
PSI could not be a more hostile environment to this sort of thing if
they had designed it with that in mind, and one cannot just write and
install X.29 software -- it has to be certified by the network vendors.
GTE Telenet might do so, Tymnet might, but I haven't heard of either of
them being asked.  And you would also need to certify the outgoing
TCP/IP over X.25 package at the far end, and the Deutschebundespost?
Well, "never" somewhat understates the situation.

How about using a datex-p connection to connect to a machine in the US
as a remote user?  Certainly feasible.  This is what is called in the
trade an X.3 -> X.25 -> X.3 or X.29 connection, should you need to know.
All you need is
 a) a machine at this end with incoming Tymnet or Telenet access (or
maybe a few other things, but I don't know).  Some universities have
them, some don't, some commercial firms have them, some don't, etc.  The
minimum charge for those connections is circa $10K per month, $5K to
some educational sites, so they are not real common in places that have
not discovered a large need.
 b) an account at that end, with Datex-P, that has international access
authorization.  That costs extra, incidentally.
 c) The machine address here (a long string of numbers, the first four
of which identify the network).
 d) And, of course, an account on the machine here, since one will be
logging into it.

What can you do once you get here?  Anything that the local user can do,
no more, no less.

Can files be transferred over the VAX/PSI (X.3) ->X.25->X.29 link?  Yep.
Either things like "go into an editor at the remote and pretend someone
is typing very fast" or things like kermit work.  The latter very slowly
because of the long packet-acknowledgement delays.

How about mail over that connection?  Not unless you invent some
protocols such as the ones MAILNET uses (this relies that you have a
daemon at the far end that you can take over and that the remote system
knows about) or cook something up yourself.  You are basically logged
into the remote machine and using yours transparently, or you are logged
into you machine and not the remote.

And how are these things tariffed?  Ignoring the fact that the charges
are for kilopackets and connect time, rather than connect time and
distance, just like long-distance voice phone:  Either originator pays
or remote machine pays ("collect call") service is possible.  Sites that
are willing to accept collect calls essentially sign up in advance,
making it more like an in-WATS service - metered, but invisible to the
caller.  The norm in the US is collect call service, although the major
packet switched networks all support login and password services for
users who need to have accounts and pay the charges themselves
(presumably because they are dealing with remote sites who refuse
"collect" incoming calls).  Internationally, there are three separate
sets of charges, each of which can be charged to either the originator
or the receiver (at least in principle).  Assuming that a call
originates in Germany and is bound for Maryland...
 a) Kilopacket and connect time charges for connecting to Datex-P.  This
is the same charge that would be incurred if you were making a local
connection in Germany.  For moderate use, it averages about $3/connect
hour, last I checked.  Datex-P does not accept any "collect" traffic at
all, so you have to pay then.
 b) Kilopacket and connect time charges for crossing from Datex-P into a
network that serves the US (the "X.75 gateway").  Here, they get you
through the nose.  Again, since Datex-P does not accept "collect"
traffic and the originating network has to be responsible for these
charges, they get passed to the Datex-P account holder.
 c) Kilopacket and connect time charges for connecting to the remote
machine in Maryland.  These charges correspond to domestic rates
(typically $5 - $9 per connect hour), and are typically charged to the
Maryland site (Telenet or Tymnet send them a bill at the end of the
month).  If the Maryland site declines to accept the collect charge,
they can be charged to the Datex-P account also, just like the voice
phone.
  The other way works the same way except that, since Datex-P refuses
any collect traffic, ALL charges are assessed to the account at the US
end.  It tends to be a bit cheaper to call from Europe to the US than
vice versa (backwards from voice), but I have not reviewed the numbers
since the dollar collapsed.

  If you can find a local GTE Telenet access number (don't know where
you are, or I could look it up), dial them up, type MAIL when you see @,
type INTL/ASSOCIATES when it asks for a user name, and give INTL as a
password.  Then track through their little menus until you find the
Federal Republic of Germany -- it should give you information on
tariffs, etc.
 (in case you wonder, those accessing instructions are public
information and appear on the second page of GTE Telenet's give-away "US
Access telephone numbers" brochure).

  that is probably about the end of my knowledge.
  good luck
   john



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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Grant Taylor]

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On 10/16/2017 10:44 AM, Don Hopkins wrote:
> My uncle worked at the German Space Operations Center, which had 
> DATEX-P, so I asked a mailing list about how to connect with him, and 
> got some interesting replies that give a glimpse of the topologies and 
> costs of the time:

Oh my.  That's intriguing and a number of new acronyms / terms that I 
need to look up.

X.29
X.75

Does anyone know of a good place to discuss networking history, routing, 
email, dns, etc.  I'd like to avoid getting too far off topic for TUHS.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die

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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Ron Natalie]

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I love the knobs and intercom panels on the front of the IMP.

 

I actually had my own IMP.   BRL bought four IMPs and four TACs  and set them up as our campus network early on.    I think we were the largest single purchaser of the ACC LH/DH-11 interfaces.

 

I had set up all the modems for the IMPs and as soon as the BBN guy would uncrate them and power them up I’d run around shoving the trunks and host connectors into them.    By the end of the day I wrote my contact at BBN telling him our network was all up and running.   I got a letter back explaining that it would not be possible for me to do that.     This led to my new motto that I kept for a long time:

 

I didn’t know it was impossible when I did it.

 

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ARPANET Information Brochure (December 1985)

[Larry McVoy]

I love the picture of the nodes on the net.  I was told, by someone that I
don't remember, that uwisc was the 11th node on the net.  I bet it was
Larry Landweber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Landweber who told
me that.  But I don't know.  If anyone can confirm or deny that I'd love
to know.

Either way, thanks for posting this, I think this is very on topic.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 04:09:50PM +0100, Michael-John Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It's not 100% on topic, but I thought this December 1985 ARPANET Information
> Brochure would be of interest to the list:
> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a164353.pdf
> 
> Cheers, MJ
> -- 
> Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm