Talk:Network Control Program (ARPANET)

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Revision as of 17:31, 19 October 2021 by Jnc (talk | contribs) (→‎MOS NCP?: All non-NCP, I think)
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Preserved implementations

Multics and TOPS-20 (and I think maybe TOPS-10 too) have been preserved, and run under emulators, but I don't know if their NCP's were included in what was preserved. Jnc (talk) 13:53, 15 October 2021 (CEST)

Yes, TOPS-10 is also alive and well. Many versions too: at least some of 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x. Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 15:06, 15 October 2021 (CEST)

POSIX/Linux version

You're officially insane! :-) Jnc (talk) 14:40, 18 October 2021 (CEST)

I actually wanted to make a small ARPANET using the SIMH IMP emulator, with some historical hosts like ITS and WAITS. But to do that I first need to have a good debug tool, so might as well make it an NCP suite. It remains to be seen how far it can go. Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 15:18, 18 October 2021 (CEST)
Ah, makes sense. Jnc (talk) 15:20, 18 October 2021 (CEST)

MOS NCP?

I'm pretty sure there wasn't one. Both the TIU and PE had Host-to-IMP Protocol implementations, of course, but that's only the bottom layer of a complete NCP stack, which also included the ICP and AHHP. Jnc (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2021 (CEST)

Given your feedback, I'll remove it. I still wonder how come may hosts were listed as "MOS" in the 1982 hosts lists: https://github.com/ttkzw/hosts.txt/blob/master/pub/hosts/1982/host_names_1982_part_1.pdf etc. Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 16:01, 19 October 2021 (CEST)

Those seem to be either Port Expanders (which were so popular that it became a product for SRI - see here), or possibly TIUs in 'milking machine' mode (a Dave Clark term for using a TIU to put a time-sharing system without TCP on the Internet), or BBN gateways (routers - like I said, BBN switched from originally running ELF in its gateways to MOS, and it had apparently happened by the date of this list). Looking at the 'MOS' entries in part1 (only - with no copy/paste, re-typing got tiresome):

  • ARPA-DMS - says "LSI-11/03 (MOSS) [sic-JNC] -> HP-3000(MPE-IV)" - TIU fronting the HP?
  • BBN-GATEWAY - "PDP-11/40 (MOS) -> SATNET" - probably ran ELF originally, so an -11/40
  • BRAGG-GWY1 - "LSI-11/02 [sic-JNC] (MOS)" - likely a Packet Radio router
  • CENTACS-MMP - "PDP-11/34 (MOS) -> 7 CDC-5600s(MPX-RT)" - likely a PE, in front of all those other machines
  • CENTACS-TF - "PDP-11/34 (MOS) -> various machines" - ditto

I just never heard of anything running under MOS that would have needed/used an NCP. All the things I ever heard of were either on IP (various router projects) or TCP (TIU). Jnc (talk) 17:30, 19 October 2021 (CEST)

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