The Unix Heritage Society mailing list
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org>
To: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Unix NCP protocol stack for ARPANET
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2021 09:26:05 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <7w8ryhe9qq.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2P5vtw2FPiWNLz9TjD1k4aooJS=BkPW4Ke7rC_Oj3HatA@mail.gmail.com> (Clem Cole's message of "Sun, 24 Oct 2021 13:24:34 -0400")

Clem Cole wrote:
> > Has any other NCP implementation for Unix survived?  From old host
> > tables I think there may have been some VAXen online before the
> > switch to TCP/IP.
>
> Hmmm... I find that interesting because Stan Smith and I wrote the
> original IP/TCP for the VAX in 1979/1980 when we were at Tektronix
> [...].  When Stan and I started that work, I had looked everywhere I
> could think to find an NCP implementation, and never found one.

That seems consistent with host tables I see.  According to those, there
were no VAXen on the ARPANET in 1980.  However, there were a a dozen or
so in mid 1981; mostly VMS.  (I'd also like to ask about NCP for VMS,
but this is TUHS.)

In early 1982 the number of VAXen has doubled, and out of those 10 are
running Unix including prominent sites like BBN, CCA, PURDUE, RAND, UCB.
Here's the rub.  Some hosts may have jumped the TCP/IP gun ahead of the
1/1 1983 flag day.  The host tables don't say.  Could it be that all
those VAXen were running experimental TCP/IP in January 1982?

> You tell me, but I was under the impression, that you folks at MIT did
> a ChaosNet interface, IIRC, so there may have been some sort of
> conversion on your LAN, but I really doubt there was a real NCP
> running.

The MIT host tables do show the Chaos networks, but I don't include
those in the count.

  parent reply	other threads:[~2021-10-25  9:26 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-10-24 16:16 Lars Brinkhoff
2021-10-24 17:24 ` Clem Cole
2021-10-24 18:32   ` Ron Natalie
2021-10-24 19:28     ` Clem Cole
2021-10-24 19:28     ` Warner Losh
2021-10-24 20:25       ` Clem Cole
2021-10-25  9:26   ` Lars Brinkhoff [this message]
2021-10-25 16:50 Paul Ruizendaal
2021-10-25 19:04 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-10-25 18:50 Noel Chiappa
2021-10-28  9:41 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-10-26  8:06 Paul Ruizendaal

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=7w8ryhe9qq.fsf@junk.nocrew.org \
    --to=lars@nocrew.org \
    --cc=clemc@ccc.com \
    --cc=tuhs@tuhs.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).