[TUHS] BSD Talk History -- Credit Where Credit is Due

[TUHS] BSD Talk History -- Credit Where Credit is Due

[Clem Cole]

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I was thinking about this some more.

IIRC: Peter and I sketched out the protocol for the sockets version on a
whiteboard in our office one night after a beer and pizza run. Rick
Spicklemeir, Tom Quarles, and Jim Kleckner also participated in those bull
sessions.  I started writing the program soon after that and had it working
to a point in a couple of hours.  I don't remember the issues, but a couple
of them were when I left for the USENIX conference later that week.  When I
got back Peter had finished it and put it into RCS.    The key is that the
coding was primarily Peter and myself, but Rick, TQ, and Jim all had
contributed in some manner, too,

Although the famous bug of using a vax integer, you can squarely blame me —
and as I said, having worked on networking for several years before my time
at UCB, I should have known better.  But did not even think about it.  I
failed Henry's ten programming commandments and concluded that the world
was a Vax. Mei culpa.
ᐧ

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[TUHS] Re: BSD Talk History -- Credit Where Credit is Due

[Dan Cross]

On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 10:41 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> I was thinking about this some more.
>
> IIRC: Peter and I sketched out the protocol for the sockets version on a whiteboard in our office one night after a beer and pizza run. Rick Spicklemeir, Tom Quarles, and Jim Kleckner also participated in those bull sessions.  I started writing the program soon after that and had it working to a point in a couple of hours.  I don't remember the issues, but a couple of them were when I left for the USENIX conference later that week.  When I got back Peter had finished it and put it into RCS.    The key is that the coding was primarily Peter and myself, but Rick, TQ, and Jim all had contributed in some manner, too,
>
> Although the famous bug of using a vax integer, you can squarely blame me — and as I said, having worked on networking for several years before my time at UCB, I should have known better.  But did not even think about it.  I failed Henry's ten programming commandments and concluded that the world was a Vax. Mei culpa.
> ᐧ

Thanks, Clem, these are very interesting notes.

The protocol had some interesting aspects to it; since the ctl address
was embedded in the message sent to the distant end, a trick of some
locals when I was younger was to put fake data in the request. The
effect would be that one would get a request to talk from user1@host1,
but actually be talking to user2@host2. This could either be very
funny or very uncool.

I'm curious how the original worked, which I sort of gather was before
sockets? How did the two users rendezvous?

        - Dan C.

[TUHS] Re: BSD Talk History -- Credit Where Credit is Due

[Clem Cole]

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I don't remember how Kipp did it.  It would have been very V7 oriented and
using the FS and signals I suspect.  I remember is was not very sexy and
one of things sockets allowed was completely rethink.  That was the bull
session I was referring too. As for the security issue, sure - we would not
have considered that.  Again we were grad students and basically friendly
so actions like that would have been considered uncool.

As I have pointed out elsewhere when a connection to the ARPAnet cost
250K/yr per host and a host cost $1-4M, the concepts of security and us all
being in it together—a friendly community, as it were—had different
behaviors when a host is is $10-30 micro and wireless Interconnect can
slimed at Starbucks for free.
ᐧ

On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 11:01 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 10:41 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> > I was thinking about this some more.
> >
> > IIRC: Peter and I sketched out the protocol for the sockets version on a
> whiteboard in our office one night after a beer and pizza run. Rick
> Spicklemeir, Tom Quarles, and Jim Kleckner also participated in those bull
> sessions.  I started writing the program soon after that and had it working
> to a point in a couple of hours.  I don't remember the issues, but a couple
> of them were when I left for the USENIX conference later that week.  When I
> got back Peter had finished it and put it into RCS.    The key is that the
> coding was primarily Peter and myself, but Rick, TQ, and Jim all had
> contributed in some manner, too,
> >
> > Although the famous bug of using a vax integer, you can squarely blame
> me — and as I said, having worked on networking for several years before my
> time at UCB, I should have known better.  But did not even think about it.
> I failed Henry's ten programming commandments and concluded that the world
> was a Vax. Mei culpa.
> > ᐧ
>
> Thanks, Clem, these are very interesting notes.
>
> The protocol had some interesting aspects to it; since the ctl address
> was embedded in the message sent to the distant end, a trick of some
> locals when I was younger was to put fake data in the request. The
> effect would be that one would get a request to talk from user1@host1,
> but actually be talking to user2@host2. This could either be very
> funny or very uncool.
>
> I'm curious how the original worked, which I sort of gather was before
> sockets? How did the two users rendezvous?
>
>         - Dan C.
>

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