-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, 20 March 2006 11:22 AM
To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [IP] more on 1972 ARPANET Film (was: "an amazing film...")
Begin forwarded message:
From: Suzanne Johnson <sjohnson@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: March 19, 2006 3:27:14 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] 1972 ARPANET Film (was: "an amazing film...")
Without going too far down memory lane, in response to
Lauren's comment I've got to say that amid the "prehistoric
technology" in this film is a reference to network manaqement
and control, which has, in my opinion, never developed to the
same point since that time. One possible exception would be
the Ricochet network in the mid-nineties.
I was on the system staff at Sumex-Aim (at Stanford) back in
the early-sevienties. We were the first non-defense funded
application
site on the ARPANET. One day the system staff were all in the
offices which were located several blocks from the machine
room containing our computer and IMP. We all started
getting IMP shut- down messages on our terminals. "IMP going
down in 30 minutes for 10 minutes", with a count-down of
minutes after that. We all looked at each other and asked
who scheduled the shut down. None of us had.
Then someone remembered an 800 number we'd been given when we
connected to the ARPANET. It was for a "network control
center somewhere back east". We called the number and asked
the person who answered what was going on. Not expecting a
coherent answer, we were surprised when the person made a
quick check and told us: "your IMP has been having
intermittent problems for about a week. It finally was able
to make a diagnosis of which board was creating the problem.
We've scheduled and controlled the downtime and a technician
is there waiting to switch boards. You will be back up again
in 10 minutes."
By the time we all regained our composure, and sent someone
to the machine room, the IMP was fixed and in the process of
coming back up.
We then recalled that as a part of being connected to the
ARPANET, we'd had to ensure that access to the IMP was
available at all times to ARPANET technicians (we'd given a
key to them).
...Suzanne
At 8:20 PM -0500 3/18/06, David Farber wrote:
Excuse me, I have a sudden urge to dig out some old
DECtapes, punched
paper tapes, stone knives, and bearskins...
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
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