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History of ARPANET
Behind the Net - The untold history of the ARPANET

Or - The "Open" History of the ARPANET/Internet

By Michael Hauben

[email protected]

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Part I: The history of ARPA leading up to

the ARPANET
A climate of pure research surrounded the entire history of the ARPANET. The Advanced
Research Projects Agency was formed with an emphasis towards research, and thus was not
oriented only to a military product. The formation of this agency was part of the U.S. reaction
to the then Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957. (ARPA draft, III-6). ARPA was
assigned to research how to utilize their investment in computers via Command and Control
Research (CCR). Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was chosen to head this effort. Licklider came to ARPA
from Bolt, Beranek and Newman, (BBN) in Cambridge, MA in October 1962. (ARPA draft,
III-6)

From Licklider's arrival, the department's contracts were shifted from independent
corporations towards "the best academic computer centers" (ARPA draft, III-7). The then
current computing mode was via batch processing (you know, input via stacks of punched
cards, output: results, or lack of them, made known one or more days later.). Licklider saw
improvements could be made in CCR only via work on advancing the current state of
computing technology. He particularly wanted to move forward into the age of interactive
computing, and the current contractors were not moving in that direction. In an Interview,
Licklider told the interviewee that SDC "was based on batch processing, and while I was
interested in a new way of doing things, they [SDC] were studying how to make
improvements in the ways things were done already." (An Interview with J.C.R. Licklider
conducted by William Aspray and Arthur Norberg on October 28, 1988 Cambridge, Mass.
CBI Univ of Minn., Madison) The office "developed into a far-reaching basic research
program in advanced technology." (ARPA draft III-7) Licklider's Office was renamed
Information Processing Techniques (IPT or IPTO) to reflect that change.

The Completion report states that "Prophetically, Licklider nicknamed the group of computer
specialists he gathered the 'Intergalactic Network'." ARPA draft, III-7) Before work on the
ARPANET began, the very idea of the network was planted by the creation of the Information
Processing Techniques Office of ARPA. Robert Taylor, Licklider's successor at the IPTO,
remembers Lick's interest in interconnecting communities:

"Lick was among the first to perceive the spirit of community created among the users of the
first time-sharing systems... In pointing out the community phenomena created, in part, by the
sharing of resources in one timesharing system, Lick made it easy to think about
interconnecting the communities, the interconnection of interactive, on-line communities of
people, ..." (ARPA draft, III-21)

The "spirit of community" was related to Lick's interest in having computers help people
communicate with other people (Licklider, Licklider, and Robert Taylor, "The Computer as a
Communication Device") Licklider's vision of an "intergalactic network" connecting people
represented an important conceptional shift in computer science. This vision was also an
important beginning to the ARPANET. After the ARPANET was up and running, the
computer scientists using it realized that assisting human communication was the most
fundamental advance that the ARPANET made possible. (Cite Larry Roberts)

As early as 1963, a common question asked of the IPTO directors by the ARPA directors
about IPTO projects was "Why don't we rely on the computer industry to do that?", or
ocassionally more strongly, "We should not support that effort because ABC (read, "computer
industry") will do it - if it's worth doing!" (ARPA draft, III-23) This question leads to an
important point - this ARPA research was different from what the computer industry had in
mind to do - or was likely to undertake. Since Licklider's creation of the IPTO, the work
supported by ARPA/IPTO continued his explicit emphasis on communications. The
Completion Report explains,

"The ARPA theme is that the promise offered by the computer as a communication medium
between people, dwarfs into relative insignificance the historical beginnings of the computer
as an arithmetic engine." (ARPA draft, III-24)

The Completion Report goes on to differentiate ARPA from the computer industry:

"The computer industry, in the main, still thinks of the computer as an arithmetic engine.
Their heritage is reflected even in current designs of their communication systems.' They have
an economic and psychological commitment to the arithmetic engine model, and it can die
only slowly..." (ARPA draft, III-24)

The Completion Report further analyzes this problem by tracing it back to the nation's
institutions:

"...furthermore, it is a view that is still reinforced by most of the nation's computer science
programs. Even universities, or at least parts of them, are held in the grasp of the arithmetic
engine concept...." (ARPA draft, III-24)

Since Licklider's creation of the IPTO, the work supported by ARPA/IPTO continued the
explicit communications emphasis. Thus history has witnessed the research and development
which had led to the concrete existence of first the ARPANET, and later the Internet. Without
the commitment that existed via this support, such a development might never have happened.
One of ARPA's criterion for supporting research was such that it had to be of such a level to
offer an order of magnitude of development. As most research and development is not
immediately profitable, there has to be some kind of organization which helps to set higher
goals than just in developing what will be immediately profitable. What is really strange is
that computer networking is an immensely profitable field right now - only it is 25 years later.

Others have understood the communications promise of computers. For example, in RFC
1336, David Clark is quoted,

"It is not proper to think of networks as connecting computers. Rather, they connect people
using computers to mediate. The great success of the internet is not technical, but in human
impact. Electronic mail may not be a wonderful advance in Computer Science, but it is a
whole new way for people to communicate. The continued growth of the Internet is a
technical challenge to all of us, but we must never loose sight of where we came from, the
great change we have worked on the larger computer community, and the great potential we
have for future change."

Various research outside of ARPA had been done by Paul Baron, Thomas Marill and others.
[This history is covered well in the article "From ARPANET to USENET" by Ronda
Hauben..ref] This led Lawrence Roberts and other IPTO staff to formally introduce the topic
of networking computers of differing types (incompatible hardware and software) together in
order to share resources to the early 1967 meeting of ARPA's Primary Investigators (PI).

In the spring of 1967 at the University of Michigan, ARPA held its yearly meeting of the
"principle investigators" from each of its university and other contractors. (ARPA draft, III-25)
Results from the previous year's research was summarized and future research was discussed,
either introduced by ARPA or the various researchers present at the meetings. Networking
was one of the topics brought up at this meeting. (ARPA draft, III-25)

The Completion Report continues the story:

"At the meeting it was agreed that work could begin on the conventions to be used for
exchanging messages between any pair of computers in the proposed network, and also on
consideration of the kinds of communications lines and data sets to be used. In particular, it
was decided that the inter-host communication 'protocol' would include conventions for
character and block transmission, error checking and retransmission, and computer and user
identification. Frank Westervelt, then of the University of Michigan, was picked to write a
position paper on these areas of communication, an ad hoc 'Communication Group' was
selected from among the institutions represented, and a meeting of the group scheduled."
(ARPA draft, III-26)

In order to develop this network of varied computers, two main problems had to be solved:

" 1. To construct a 'subnetwork' consisting of telephone circuits and switching nodes whose
reliability, delay characteristics, capacity, and cost would facilitate resource sharing among
computers on the network.

2. To understand , design, and implement the protocols and procedures within the operating
systems of each connected computer, in order to allow the use of the new subnetwork by the
computers in sharing resources." (ARPA not draft, II-8)
After one draft and additional work on this communications position paper report, a two-day
meeting was scheduled in early October 1967 by ARPA to "discuss the protocol paper and
specifications for the Interface Message Processor (IMP)." The IMP was the decided upon
method of connecting the participants computers (hosts) to each other via phone lines. This
standardized the network which the hosts connected to. Now, only the connection of the hosts
to the network would depend on vendor type, etc. ARPA had picked 19 possible participants
in what was now known as the "ARPA Network", rather than the previously vague
descriptions.

After the time of the 1967 PI Meeting, various computer scientists who were ARPA
contractors were busy thinking about various aspects which would be relevant to the planning
and development of the ARPANET. Part of that work was a document outlining a beginning
design for the IMP network. This specification would lead to the ability to a put out a
competitive procurement for the design of the IMP subnetwork.

"At the end of 1967 ARPA initiated a small contract with the Stanford Research Institute for
the development of specifications for the necessary communications system. Elmer Shapiro
was to be the key person on this study. Published in the final version in December of 1968
was a 71-page SRI report entitled "A Study of COmputer Network Design Parameters", an
early version in early 1968 served as the first draft of the IMP specification...In February or
March a memo written by Shapiro and revised by Kleinrock entitled "Functional Description
of the IMP" was circulated. After the first draft by Shapiro, it is believed that Glenn Culler
wrote a second draft, and Robert and Wessler of ARPA wrote the final version of the IMP
specification. In any case, by the first of March, 1968, IPT was able to report to the Director
of ARPA that specifications for the IMP were essentially complete, and that they would be
discussed at the upcoming PI meeting with the goal of issuing a Request for Quotation shortly
thereafter. The network was discussed at the PI meeting and by June 1968, the ARPANET
procurement officially started." (ARPA draft, III-32)

ARPA's Program Plan for the ARPANET was titled "Resource Sharing Computer Networks".
It was submitted June 3, 1968, and approved by the Director June 21, 1968.

The Completion Report explains that the Program Plan was, "an interesting document. The
stated objectives of the program were to develop experience in interconnection computers and
to improve and increase computer research productivity through resource sharing. Technical
needs in scientific and military environments were cited as justification for the program
objectives. Relevant prior work was described. It was noted that the computer research centers
supported or partially supported by IPT provided a unique testbed for computer networking
experiments, as well as providing immediate benefits to the centers and valuable research
results to the military. The network planning that had gone on was described, the need for a
network information center was noted, and the network design was sketched. A five year
schedule for network procurement, construction, operation, and transfer out of ARPA was
presented. (It was noteworthy that IPT had initially had in mind eventual transfer of the
operational network to a common carrier.) Finally a several-million-dollar, several-year
budget was stated." (ARPA draft, III-35)

"The Defense Supply Service - Washington (DSS-W) agreed to be a procurement agent for
ARPA. At the end of July the Request for Quotation for network IMPs was mailed to 140
potential bidders who had expressed interest in receiving it. Approximately 100 people from
51 companies attended a subsequent bidders' conference. Twelve proposals were actually
received by DSS_W comprising 6.6 edge-feet of paper and presenting an awesome evaluation
task for IPT, which more normally awards contracts on a sole source basis. Attempting to
evaluate the proposals "strictly by the book", an ARPA-appointed evaluation committee
retired to Monterey, California, to carry out their task. ARPA was pleasantly surprised that
several of the respondents believed that they could construct a network which performed as
much as a factor of five better than the delay constraint given in the RFQ..." (ARPA draft, III-
35)

ARPA developed a program plan, which developed into a set of specifications. These
specifications were connected to a competitive Request for Quotation to find an organization
which would design and build the subnetwork between the IMPs.

BBN won the contract to develop the IMP-to-IMP subnetwork. However the second technical
problem still remained to be solved. The protocol to allow the hosts to communicate with
each other over the subnetwork had to be developed. This work was left "for host sites to
work out among themselves." (ARPA draft, III-67) This meant that both the hardware and
software necessary to connect the hosts to the IMP subnetwork had to be developed. ARPA
assigned this duty to the initial designated ARPANET sites. As each site had a different type
of computer to connect, they individually were the best informed designers for their personal
setups. In addition the sites needed to develop the hardware and software necessary to utilize
the other hosts on the network. (ARPA draft, III-39) ARPA's assigning of responsibilities
makes the academic computer science community become an active part of the ARPANET
development team. (Interview with Alex McKenize, Nov, 1 1993)

Steve Crocker associates the placement of the initial ARPANET sites at research institutions
to the fact that the ARPANET was ground-breaking research. He wrote in a message
responding to my questions on the COM-PRIV mailing list:

"During the initial development of the Arpanet, there was simply a limit as to how far ahead
anyone could see and manage. The IMPs were placed in cooperative ARPA R&D sites with
the hope that these research sites would figure out how to exploit this new communication
medium." (Crocker, 1993A)

The first sites of the ARPANET were picked to provide either network support services or
unique resources. They were also picked as deemed technically able of developing the
protocols necessary to make communications between the varied computers connected
possible. The key services the first four sites provided were

"UCLA - Network Measurement Center SRI - Network Information Center UCSB - Culler-
Fried interactive mathematics UTAH - graphics (hidden line removal)" (Cerf, Vinton 1993)

Steve Crocker also recounts that the reason for selecting these particular four sites was
because they were "existing ARPA computer science research contractors." This was
important because "the research community could be counted on to take some initiative."
(RFC 1000, pg 1)

The very first site to receive an IMP was UCLA. Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA was
involved with much of the early development of the ARPANET. His work consisted of
understanding queueing theory and as such was one of the first computer scientists working
on the ARPANET who was dealing with how to measure what was happening as the network
would function. This made it natural to make sure that UCLA received the first node as it
would be important to initiate the network from the site which would measure the networks
activity. In order for the statistics to be correct and for analysis purposes - the first site had to
be the measurement site. Sure enough UCLA was assigned to be the Network Measurement
Center (NMC).[1]

<< , >> , Title , Contents

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Part II: The Network Working Group

Once the initial sites were picked, representatives from each site gathered together to start
talking about solving the technical problem of getting the hosts to communicate via protocols.
The ARPA Completion report tells us about this beginning:

"To provide the hosts with a little impetus to work on the host-to-host problems. ARPA
assigned Elmer Shapiro of SRI "to make something happen", a typically vague ARPA
assignment. Shapiro called a meeting in the summer of 1968 which was attended by
programmers from several of the first hosts to be connected to the network. Individuals who
were present have said that it was clear from the meeting at that time, no one had even any
clear notions of what the fundamental host-to-host issues might be." (AC Draft III-67 1.4.1.7)

Again, we see that this group, which came to be know as the Network Working Group
(NWG), was exploring new territory. The first meeting took place several months before the
first IMP was put together and they had to think from a blank slate. Throughout the existing
recollections of the important developments the NWG produced, (especially RFC 1000) the
reader is reminded that the thinking involved was totally original and thus thought-provoking.
Steve Crocker remembers in the RFC Reference Guide (RFC 1000) that the first meeting was
chaired by Elmer Shapiro, who initiated the conversation with a list of questions. (Crocker,
1993b) Also present were Steve Carr from University of Utah, Stephen Crocker from UCLA,
Jeff Rulifson from SRI, and Ron Stoughton from UCSB. These attendees are the
programmers referred to in the ARPANET Completion Report.

In the words of Steve Crocker, this was a seminal meeting. The attendees could only be but
theoretical, as none of the lowest levels of communication had been developed yet. They
needed a transport layer or low-level communications platform to be able to build upon. BBN
did not deliver the first IMP until August 30, 1969. It was important to meet beforehand, as
the NWG "imagined all sorts of possibilities." (Rfc1000) Only once their thought processes
started could this working group actually develop anything. These fresh thoughts from fresh
minds help to incubate new ideas. The ARPANET Completion Report properly acknowledges
what this early group helped accomplished: " Their early thinking was at a very high level."
(ARPA draft, III-67) A concrete decision of the first meeting was to continue holding
meetings similar to the first one. This wound up setting the precedent of a holding exchange
meetings at each of the sites.

Steve Crocker, describing the problems facing these networking pioneers, writes:

"With no specific service definition in place for what the IMPs were providing to the hosts,
there wasn't any clear idea of what work the hosts had to do. Only later did we articulate the
notion of building a layered set of protocols with general transport services on the bottom and
multiple application- specific protocols on the top. More precisely, we understood quite early
that we wanted quite a bit of generality, but we didn't have a clear idea how to achieve it. We
struggled between a grand design and getting something working quickly." (Crocker,1993c)
The initial protocol development lead to DEL (Decode- Encode-Language) and NIL (Network
Interchange Language). These languages were ahead of their time. The basic purpose was to
form an on-the-fly description that would tell the receiving end how to understand the
information that would be sent. However, these first set of meetings were extremely abstract
as neither ARPA nor the universities had deemed any official charter. The lack of a charter
allowed the group to think broadly and openly however.

BBN did submit details as to the host-IMP interface specifications from the IMP side. This
information provided the group some definite starting points to build from. Soon after BBN
provided more information, on Valentine's Day, 1969, members of the NWG, members of
BBN and members of the Network Analysis Corporation (NAC) met for the first time. [The
NAC was contracted by ARPA to "specify the topological design of the ARPANET and to
analyze its cost, performance, and reliability characteristics. (ARPA not draft, III-30)] As all
the parties had different priorities on mind, the meeting was a difficult one. BBN was
interested in the lowest level of making a reliable connection. The programmers from the host
sites were interested in getting the hosts to communicate with each either via various higher
level programs. And BBN also did not turn out to be the "experts from the East" that Steve
Crocker wrote the members of the NWG expected. He continues by writing in RFC 1000 that
they constantly thought that "a professional crew would show up eventually to take over the
problems we were dealing with."

A step of incredible importance and openness occurred as a result from a "particularly

delightful" meeting that took place a month later in Utah. (RFC1000) The participants decided
it was time to start recording their meetings in a consistent fashion. What resulted was a set of
informal notes titled "Request for Comments." Steve Crocker writes about their formation:

"I remember having great fear that we would offend whomever the official protocol designers
were, and I spent a sleepless night composing humble words for our notes. The basic ground
rules were that anyone could say anything and that nothing was official. And to emphasize the
point, I labeled the notes "Request for Comments." I never dreamed these notes would
distributed through the very medium we were discussing in these notes. Talk about Sorcerer's
Apprentice!" (Crocker, RFC 1000, pg 3, 1987)

Crocker replaced Shapiro as the Chairman of the NWG after the initial meeting. He describes
how they wrestled with creation of the host-host protocols:

"Over the spring and summer of 1969 we grappled with the detailed problems of protocol
design. Although we had a vision of the vast potential for intercomputer communication,
designing usable protocols was another matter. A custom hardware interface and custom
intrusion into the operating system was going to be required for anything we designed, and we
anticipated serious difficulty at each of the sites. We looked for existing abstractions to use. It
would have been convenient if we could have made the network simply look like a tape drive
to each host, but we knew that wouldn't do." (Crocker, RFC 1000, pg. 3)

The first two IMPs were delivered to UCLA (number 1) and SRI (Number 2). Once two IMPs
existed, the NWG had to implement a working protocol. This first set of host protocols
included a remote login for interactive use (telnet), and a way to copy files between remote
hosts (FTP). Crocker writes:
"In particular, only asymmetric, user-server relationships were supported. In December 1969,
we met with Larry Roberts in Utah, [and he] made it abundantly clear that our first step was
not big enough, and we went back to the drawing board. Over the next few months we
designed a symmetric host-host protocol, and we defined an abstract implementation of the
protocol known as the Network Control Program. ("NCP" later came to be used as the name
for the protocol, but it originally meant the program within the operating system that managed
connections. The protocol itself was known blandly only as the host-host protocol.) Along
with the basic host-host protocol, we also envisioned a hierarchy of protocols, with Telnet,
FTP and some splinter protocols as the first examples. If we had only consulted the ancient
mystics, we would have seen immediately that seven layers were required." (RFC 1000, pg 4)

After Robert's guidance, the Network Working Group went forward in developing the
protocols necessary to make the network viable. The group swelled in attendance as more and
more sites connected to the ARPANET. The group became large enough (around 100 people)
that one meeting was held in conjunction with the 1971 Spring Joint Computer Conference in
Atlantic City. A major test of the NWG's work came in October 1971, when a meeting was
held at MIT. Crocker continues the story,

"[A] major protocol "fly-off" - Representatives from each site were on hand, and everyone
tried to log in to everyone else's site. With the exception of one site that was completely down,
the matrix was almost completely filled in, and we had reached a major milestone in
connectivity." (Crocker, RFC 1000, pg. 4)

The NCP was created as what was called the "host to host protocol." Explaining why this was
important, the authors of the ARPA draft write:

"The problem is to design a host protocol which is sufficiently powerful for the kinds of
communication that will occur and yet can be implemented in all of the various different host
computer systems. The initial approach taken involved an entity called a "Network Control
Program" which would typically reside in the executive of a host, such that processes within a
host would communicate with the network through this Network Control Program. The
primary function of the NCP is to establish connections, break connections, switch
connections, and control flow. A layered approach was taken such that more complex
procedures (such as File Transfer Procedures) were built on top of similar procedures in the
host Network Control Program." (Arpa draft, II-24)

As the ARPANET grew, the number of Users bypassed the number of developers. This
signaled the success of these networking pioneers. Steve Crocker appointed Alex McKenize
and Jon Postel to replace him as Chairmen of the Network Working Group. The Completion
Report details how this role changed:

"McKenzie and Postel interpreted their task to be one of codification and coordination
primarily, and after a few more spurts of activity the protocol definition process settled for the
most part into a status of a maintenance effort." (ARPA draft,III-69)

ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was a management body which lent funding to
academic computer scientists. ARPA's smart management sense paved the way for these
scientists to create the ARPANET. BBN helped via developing the packet switching
techniques most suitable to passing a wide variety of information. However, the most
important development was that of the "Request for Comments" documentation.
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Part III: About RFC's as "Open"

Documentation
The openness initiated from the very first meeting of the Network Working Group continued
on in a more informal formalized manner in the Request For Comments. As meeting notes,
the RFCs were meant to keep members updated on the status of several things. They were
also meant to gather responses from people. The Documentation Conventions RFC (RFC 3)
documents the "rules" governing the production of these notes. Topping the page were the
open distribution rules:

"Documentation of the NWG's effort is through notes such as this. Notes may be produced at
any site by anybody and included in this series."

The guide goes on to describe the rules concerning the contents of the RFCs:

"The content of a NWG note may be any thought, suggestion, etc. related to the HOST
software or other aspect of the network. Notes are encouraged to be timely rather than
polished. Philosophical positions without examples or other specifics, specific suggestions or
implementation techniques without introductory or background explication, and explicit
questions without any attempted answers are all acceptable. The minimum length for a NWG
note is one sentence."

The RFC continues to explain the philosophy behind the unprecedented amount of openness
represented:

"These standards (or lack of them) are stated explicitly for two reasons. First, there is a
tendency to view a written statement as ipso facto authoritative, and we hope to promote the
exchange and discussion of considerably less than authoritative ideas. Second, there is a
natural hesitancy to publish something unpolished, and we hope to ease this inhibition."
(Crocker, RFC 3 - 1969) [The entire RFC is reproduced in the Appendix B.]

This openness led to the exchange of information. These open principles are what made the
development of the Net possible.

Statements like the ones contained in RFC 3 are very progressive in their openness. Late
1960's was a time awash in popular protest for freedom of speech and demanding more of a
say of how the country is run. The openness contained in trying to develop new technologies
fits well with the cry for more democracy which students demanded throughout the country
and the world. What is amazing is that the collaboration of the NWG (mostly graduate
students) and ARPA (a component of the military), seems to be contrary to the normal
atmosphere of the times. Robert Braden of the Internet Activities Board reflects on this
collaboration:
"For me, participation in the development of the ARPAnet and the Internet protocols has been
very exciting. One important reason it worked, I believe, is that there were a lot of very bright
people all working more or less in the same direction, led by some very wise people in the
funding agency. The result was to create a community of network researchers who believed
strongly that collaboration is more powerful than competition among researchers. I don't think
any other model would have gotten us where we are today." (RFC 1336)

What is even more important is the work of these computer scientists founded what has lead
to the most amazing and democratic body (i.e.: The Net and the culture attached to it) to
emerge in long time. The community that has developed and the tools which accompany it
form an important democratic force.

The idea of calling these notes a "Request for Comment" is a fascinating tradition. It predates
the Usenet Post, which in a fashion could be called a "request for comment" as it is the
presentation of a particular person's ideas, questions or comments, to the general public (of
those who read that newsgroup) for comments, criticism or suggestion, or just plain to further
the readers' knowledge. Other Early RFCs echo this reality. There exist RFCs which are in
response to previous RFCs. Following are some examples, more are contained in the appendix.

65 Walden, D. Comments on Host/Host Protocol document #1 1 Crocker, S. Host software

1969 April 7

39 Harslem, E.; Heafner, J. Comments on protocol re: NWG/RFC #36 38 Wolfe, S.

Comments on network protocol from NWG/RFC #36 36 Crocker, S. Protocol notes 1970
March 16

47 Crowther, W. BBN's comments on NWG/RFC #33 1970 April 20 33 Crocker, S. New

Host-Host Protocol 1970 February 12
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Part IV: Conclusion

The Network Working Group's development of open technical documentation - the RFC -
was a necessary step to technical advancement. Steve Crocker explains the importance of
openness in a developmental situation:

"The environment we were operating in was one of open research. The only payoff available
was to have good work recognized and used. Software was generally considered free.
Openness wasn't an option; it just was." (Crocker, 1993c)

The NWG's work was important (THE?) to the development of the ARPANET. Their work
paved the way for the development of TCP/IP, when more capacity was needed and other
problems arose.

I would call the RFC one of the Heralding Achievements of the NWG. It represents the
forward looking view which these people had and it proved to succeed. The principles which
embody RFC 3 foreshadowed the success of TCP/IP from NCP's influence. Both TCP/IP and
NCP were developed in the field. A version of the protocols would be released for
experimentation and use. Also all specifications were available free and easily available for
people to examine and make comments about. Only through this early release were the
problems and kinks found and worked out in a timely manner. This bottom-up approach is
substantially different than the top-down approach which other protocol suites have been
developed under. The top-down idea comes from figuring everything out as a standard on
paper, or behind closed doors and then releasing it to be used. The bottom-up (and free
accessibility of protocol documentation and specifications) model allows for a wide-range of
people and experiences to join in and perfect the protocol and make it the best possible.
(Check email in TCPIP.MAIL file to provide quotes.)

In summing up the achievements of the process that developed the ARPANET, the
ARPANET Completion Report draft explains:

"The ARPANET development was an extremely intense activity in which contributions were
made by many of the best computer scientists in the United States. Thus, almost all of the
"major technical problems" already mentioned received continuing attention and the detailed
approach to those problems changed" [II-24]

The computer scientists and others involved were encouraged in their work by the ARPA
philosophy of gathering the best computer scientists working in the field and supporting them:

"IPT usually does little day-to-day management of its contractors. Especially with its research
contracts, IPT would not be producing faster results with such management as research must
progress at its own pace. IPT has generally adopted a mode of management which entails
finding highly motivated, highly skilled contractors, giving them a task, and allowing them to
proceed by themselves." (III-47)
The result, explained by the Completion Report was a new way of looking at computers as
communications devices rather than as arithmetic devices. Yet many computer science
department still do not understand this significance today.
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/docs/arpa--5.html

End Notes
• The Network Information Center
• RFC 1000 reports on the process of the installation of thefirst IMP

"CCN's [The Campus Computing Network of UCLA] chance to obtain a connection to the
ARPANET was a result of the presence at UCLA of Professor L. Kleinrock and his students,
including S. Crocker, J. Postel, and V. Cerf. This group was not only involved in the original
design of the network and the Host protocols, but also was to operate the Network
Measurement Center (NMC). For these reasons the first delivered IMP was installed at UCLA,
and ARPA was thus able to easily offer CCN the opportunity for connection."

"In a somewhat less structured way, the research groups receiving ARPA IPTO support were
then encouraged to begin considering the design and implementation of protocols and
procedures and, in turn, computer program modifications, in the various host computers in
order to use the subnetwork. Several specific responsibilities were arranged: UCLA was
specifically asked to take on the task of a "Network Measurement Center" with the objective
of studying the performance of the network as it was built, grown, and modified; SRI was
specifically asked to take on the task of a "Network Information Center" with the objective of
collecting information about the network, about host resources, and at the same time
generating computer based tools for storing and accessing that collected information. Beyond
these two specific contracts, some rather ad hoc mechanisms were pursued to reach agreement
between the various research contractors about the appropriate "host protocols" for
intercommunicating over the subnetwork. The "Network Working Group" of interested
individuals from the various host sites was rather informally encouraged by ARPA. After a
time, this Network Working Group became the forum for, and eventually a semi-official
approval authority for, the discussion of and "

The Network Information Center

The accessibility of distributed resources carries with it the need for an information service
(either centralized or distributed) that enables users to learn about those resources. This was
recognized at the PI [ed. Primary Instigators] meeting in Michigan in the spring of 1967. At
the time, Doug Engelbart and his group at the Stanford Research Institute were already
involved in research and development to provide a computer-based facility to augment human
interaction. Thus, it was decided that Stanford Research Institute would be a suitable place for
a "Network Information Center" (NIC) to be established for the ARPANET. With the
beginning of implementation of the network in 1969, construction also began on the NIC at
SRI."

RFC 1000 reports on the process of the installation of thefirst IMP

"[T]ime was pressing: The first IMP was due to be delivered to UCLA September 1, 1969,
and the rest were scheduled at monthly intervals.
At UCLA we scrambled to build a host-IMP interface. SDS, the builder of the Sigma 7,
wanted many months and many dollars to do the job. Mike Wingfield, another grad student at
UCLA, stepped in and offered to get interface built in six weeks for a few thousand dollars.
He had a gorgeous, fully instrumented interface working in five and one half weeks. I was in
charge of the software, and we were naturally running a bit late. September 1 was Labor Day,
so I knew I had a couple of extra days to debug the software. Moreover, I had heard BBN was
having some timing troubles with the software, so I had some hope they'd miss the ship date.
And I figured that first some Honeywell people would install the hardware -- IMPs were built
out of Honeywell 516s in those days -- and then BBN people would come in a few days later
to shake down the software. An easy couple of weeks of grace.

BBN fixed their timing trouble, air shipped the IMP, and it arrived on our loading dock on
Saturday, August 30. They arrived with the IMP, wheeled it into our computer room, plugged
it in and the software restarted from where it had been when the plug was pulled in
Cambridge. Still Saturday, August 30. Panic time at UCLA.

The second IMP was delivered to SRI at the beginning of October, and ARPA's interest was
intense. Larry Roberts and Barry Wessler came by for a visit on November 21, and we
actually managed to demonstrate a Telnet-like connection to SRI."
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/docs/arpa--6.html

Documentation Conventions
• CONTENT
• FORM
• DISTRIBUTION
• OTHER NOTES

The Network Working Group seems to consist of Steve Carr of Utah, Jeff Rulifson and Bill
Duvall at SRI, and Steve Crocker and Gerard Deloche at UCLA. Membership is not closed.

The Network Working Group (NWG) is concerned with the HOST software, the strategies for
using the network, and initial experiments with the network.

Documentation of the NWG's effort is through notes such as this. Notes may be produced at
any site by anybody and included in this series.

CONTENT

The content of a NWG note may be any thought, suggestion, etc. related to the HOST
software or other aspect of the network. Notes are encouraged to be timely rather than
polished. Philosophical positions without examples or other specifics, specific suggestions or
implementation techniques without introductory or background explication, and explicit
questions without any attempted answers are all acceptable. The minimum length for a NWG
note is one sentence.

These standards (or lack of them) are stated explicitly for two reasons. First, there is a
tendency to view a written statement as ipso facto authoritative, and we hope to promote the
exchange and discussion of considerably less than authoritative ideas. Second, there is a
natural hesitancy to publish something unpolished, and we hope to ease this inhibition.

FORM

Every NWG note should bear the following information:

1. "Network Working Group" "Request for Comments:" x where x is a serial number. Serial
numbers are assigned by Bill Duvall at SRI

2. Author and affiliation

3. Date

4. Title. The title need not be unique.

DISTRIBUTION

One copy only will be sent from the author's site to"

1. Bob Kahn, BB&N 2. Larry Roberts, ARPA 3. Steve Carr, UCLA 4. Jeff Rulifson, UTAH 5.
Ron Stoughton, UCSB 6. Steve Crocker, UCLA

Reproduction if desired may be handled locally.

OTHER NOTES

Two notes (1 & 2) have been written so far. These are both titled HOST Software and are by
Steve Crocker and Bill Duvall, separately.

Other notes planned are on

1. Network Timetable

2. The Philosophy of NIL

3. Specifications for NIL

4. Deeper Documentation of HOST Software

http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/docs/arpa-Listing.html

Listing of RFCs that are Comments

238 "Comments on DTP and FTP proposals"

1453 A Comment on Packet Video Remote Conferencing and the Transport/Network

47 BBN's comments on NWG/RFC #33

489 Comment on resynchronization of connection status proposal

684 Commentary on procedure calling as a network protocol

176 Comments on "Byte size for connections"

368 Comments on "Proposed Remote Job Entry Protocol"

175 Comments on "Socket conventions reconsidered"

151 Comments on a proffered official ICP: RFCs 123, 127

535 Comments on File Access Protocol

430 Comments on File Transfer Protocol

65 Comments on Host/Host Protocol document #1

692 Comments on IMP/Host Protocol changes (RFCs 687 and 690)

224 Comments on Mailbox Protocol

68 Comments on memory allocation control commands: CEASE, ALL, GVB, RET,RFNM

1970 August 31

773 Comments on NCP/TCP mail service transition strategy

38 Comments on network protocol from NWG/RFC #36

44 Comments on NWG/RFC 33 and 36

623 Comments on on-line host name service

39 Comments on protocol re: NWG/RFC #36

718 Comments on RCTE from the Tenex implementation experience

141 Comments on RFC 114: A File Transfer Protocol

127 Comments on RFC 123

148 Comments on RFC 123

582 Comments on RFC 580: Machine readable protocols

393 Comments on Telnet Protocol changes

385 Comments on the File Transfer Protocol

607 Comments on the File Transfer Protocol

624 Comments on the File Transfer Protocol

696 Comments on the IMP/Host and Host/IMP Protocol changes

50 Comments on the Meyer proposal

559 Comments on the new Telnet Protocol and its implementation

513 Comments on the new Telnet specifications

690 Comments on the proposed Host/IMP Protocol changes

563 Comments on the RCTE Telnet option

463 FTP comments and response to RFC 430

40 More comments on the forthcoming protocol

1111 Request for comments on Request for Comments: Instructions to RFC Authors

129 Request for comments on socket name structure

614 Response to RFC 607: "Comments on the File Transfer Protocol"

1018 Some comments on SQuID

117 Some comments on the official protocol

1000 THE REQUEST FOR COMMENTS REFERENCE GUIDE

531 Feast or famine? A response to two recent RFC's about network information 1973 June
26

463 FTP comments and response to RFC 430

613 Network connectivity: A response to RFC 603 Network connectivity a response to RFC
603

685 Response time in cross network debugging

135 Response to NWG/RFC 110

355 Response to NWG/RFC 346

73 Response to NWG/RFC 67

130 Response to RFC 111: Pressure from the chairman

131 Response to RFC 116: May NWG meeting

29 Response to RFC 28

492 Response to RFC 467

568 Response to RFC 567 - cross country network bandwidth

603 Response to RFC 597: Host status

614 Response to RFC 607: "Comments on the File Transfer Protocol"

125 Response to RFC 86: Proposal for network standard format for a graphics data stream
1971 April 18

555 Responses to critiques of the proposed mail protocol

156 Status of the Illinois site: Response to RFC 116

112 User/Server Site Protocol: Network host questionnaire responses