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Note 47
FROM: Jack Haverty
I wrote, debugged, and made functional the first implementation of TCP for Unix, as part of the projects which Vint [Cerf] had BBN doing at the time. It was based on the TCP which Jim Mathis at SRI had recently written for the MOS environment, whose only relationship to Unix was that they both ran on PDP-11 processors. I still have a listing of my TCP code, dated March 30, 1979 and recording the important fact that at the time the moon was at New Moon plus 2 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes, and 40 seconds. The TCP was written in Macro-11, and running on a sadly underpowered PDP-11/40. It was used in the first "TCP Bakeoff", battling with other implementations - Bob Braden's on the 360, Dave Clark's on Multics, Bill Plummer's PDP-10, etc. I know there were other people involved at different sites, but I can only remember (some of the) ones who came to the meeting. There must be some old IEN that documented that.
However, none of that first Unix TCP code could possibly be in BSD today, unless BSD is somehow running PDP-11 assembly code. Al Nemeth and Mike Wingfield were involved in subsequently writing TCP for the 11/70 Unix environment, and Rob Gurwitz for the Vax. Rob's code might have survived in some form in BSD, but you'd probably need some fancy digital DNA testing to determine that. John Sax did TCP for the HP-3000 - but I can't recall if that was Unix or not.
That Unix TCP was my first assignment as a new employee at BBN. I had not heard of TCP. I had seen someone at MIT using Unix, and watched for a few minutes, but I was unable to decipher the gibberish on the screen or understand the arcane commands being typed. I had never used a PDP-11/40. I had never heard of MOS. And I didn't know a lot about networking below the layers of email and such.
So of course I was perfectly qualified for the job!
/Jack Haverty
I wrote, debugged, and made functional the first implementation of TCP for Unix, as part of the projects which Vint [Cerf] had BBN doing at the time. It was based on the TCP which Jim Mathis at SRI had recently written for the MOS environment, whose only relationship to Unix was that they both ran on PDP-11 processors. I still have a listing of my TCP code, dated March 30, 1979 and recording the important fact that at the time the moon was at New Moon plus 2 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes, and 40 seconds. The TCP was written in Macro-11, and running on a sadly underpowered PDP-11/40. It was used in the first "TCP Bakeoff", battling with other implementations - Bob Braden's on the 360, Dave Clark's on Multics, Bill Plummer's PDP-10, etc. I know there were other people involved at different sites, but I can only remember (some of the) ones who came to the meeting. There must be some old IEN that documented that.
However, none of that first Unix TCP code could possibly be in BSD today, unless BSD is somehow running PDP-11 assembly code. Al Nemeth and Mike Wingfield were involved in subsequently writing TCP for the 11/70 Unix environment, and Rob Gurwitz for the Vax. Rob's code might have survived in some form in BSD, but you'd probably need some fancy digital DNA testing to determine that. John Sax did TCP for the HP-3000 - but I can't recall if that was Unix or not.
That Unix TCP was my first assignment as a new employee at BBN. I had not heard of TCP. I had seen someone at MIT using Unix, and watched for a few minutes, but I was unable to decipher the gibberish on the screen or understand the arcane commands being typed. I had never used a PDP-11/40. I had never heard of MOS. And I didn't know a lot about networking below the layers of email and such.
So of course I was perfectly qualified for the job!
/Jack Haverty
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