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This version from 1974 includes the first international link to UCL in London. As no-one had budget for a dedicated transatlantic link, it was piggybacked on a

This version from 1974 includes the first international link to UCL in London. As no-one had budget for a dedicated transatlantic link, it was piggybacked on a link via NORSAR in Norway that was intended for seismic monitoring of nuclear tests. http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeography//atlas/arpanet_june1974_large.gif http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeo...

lb1lf 10y ago
...being a bit of a pedant (and Norwegian!) I'd like to point out that the first international link was precisely the one to NORSAR at Kjeller; the link over the North Sea to UCL was the second. :) (Kjeller/NORSAR was hooked up in June 1973 using a blistering fast 9.6kbps link, if memory serves)
- mhandley 10y ago
  The history of this link is quite interesting: http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/internet-history.html http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/internet-history.html Anyway, I think we can agree to share the glory; although the first international link was to the TIP at Kjeller, the first end host was the PDP-9 in London, which itself acted as a relay to the University of London CDC.
  - lb1lf 10y ago
    I think you are right; however, I will have to dig into my old copies of the Norwegian engineering monthly Teknisk Ukeblad; I read a very interesting feature there a few years ago, interviewing a couple of then NORSAR employees who admitted that quite a lot of tinkering and exploring resulted once the link was there - as you'd expect, given the nature of boffins... Edit - I'd like to dig out the old feature not to dispute your suggestion; only to share what was a very entertaining read. :-)
- tannhaeuser 10y ago
  If Norway indeed had the first endpoint, they surely would have opted to use Norsk Data computers rather than PDPs at the time, including coding up an IP ^H^H^H NCP stack for the SINTRAN OS (or its predecessor).
  - lb1lf 10y ago
    From the looks of it, the first NORSAR computers hooked up on a permanent basis were two IBM mainframes. Also, the Norwegian Defense Research Institute (FFI) utilized a teletype against the TIP. (Source: A couple of Norwegian-language webpages.)
    - tannhaeuser 10y ago
      You're probably right. Btw I didn't want to point out flaws in what you said, but b/c I have fond memories of ND. Out of boredom on a gig a couple years ago I even did a clone of the sintran shell, or rather its unique trie-like command completion over hyphens. Since you seem interested in norwegian IT history, around 1988 ND had a dept in Kiel/North Germany where I did an apprenticeship and then some freelance work. They did Pascal compilers in cooperation with CAU (Kiel Uni) there, and a commercial system for public libraries. Very recently, I heard ND also provided computers for controlling parts of the legacy particle accelerators at DESY Hamburg (which is about 3mins from my place).
      - lb1lf 10y ago
        Thank you; that is most interesting. I haven't had much hands-on experience with ND equipment, only significant exposure I've had to Norwegian-ish computer efforts were working on a Tiki 100 for a couple of years - a mid-eighties Z80 box running a CP/M clone OS, cleverly enough called KP/M (Later renamed to Tiko.) Quite a different beast from the ND minis! It would make sense that ND had deliveries to DESY - when I was in university (2000-ish), the CS department still had lots of posters on display showing ND equipment installed at CERN; apparently, someone knew someone who knew someone who needed a real-time setup for particle accelerators - and a couple of racks of NORDs running SINTRAN fit the bill nicely. By the way, the most exotic ND product I've heard of was a 28-bit mini made to circumvent COCOM rules - I can only guess that it specifically forbade export of 32-bit machines to COCOM countries. So, what does an enterprising supplier do? Neuter a 32-bit machine into 28-bit and sell them like hotcakes... :) (I'll have to look that one up one day; I only heard of it over beers (multiple!) at a faculty Christmas party fifteen years ago.)
__michaelg 10y ago
Looks like a scan of a German book or paper. Any idea which one?

lb1lf 10y ago

...being a bit of a pedant (and Norwegian!) I'd like to point out that the first international link was precisely the one to NORSAR at Kjeller; the link over the North Sea to UCL was the second. :) (Kjeller/NORSAR was hooked up in June 1973 using a blistering fast 9.6kbps link, if memory serves)

mhandley 10y ago
The history of this link is quite interesting: http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/internet-history.html http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/internet-history.html Anyway, I think we can agree to share the glory; although the first international link was to the TIP at Kjeller, the first end host was the PDP-9 in London, which itself acted as a relay to the University of London CDC.
- lb1lf 10y ago
  I think you are right; however, I will have to dig into my old copies of the Norwegian engineering monthly Teknisk Ukeblad; I read a very interesting feature there a few years ago, interviewing a couple of then NORSAR employees who admitted that quite a lot of tinkering and exploring resulted once the link was there - as you'd expect, given the nature of boffins... Edit - I'd like to dig out the old feature not to dispute your suggestion; only to share what was a very entertaining read. :-)
tannhaeuser 10y ago
If Norway indeed had the first endpoint, they surely would have opted to use Norsk Data computers rather than PDPs at the time, including coding up an IP ^H^H^H NCP stack for the SINTRAN OS (or its predecessor).
- lb1lf 10y ago
  From the looks of it, the first NORSAR computers hooked up on a permanent basis were two IBM mainframes. Also, the Norwegian Defense Research Institute (FFI) utilized a teletype against the TIP. (Source: A couple of Norwegian-language webpages.)
  - tannhaeuser 10y ago
    You're probably right. Btw I didn't want to point out flaws in what you said, but b/c I have fond memories of ND. Out of boredom on a gig a couple years ago I even did a clone of the sintran shell, or rather its unique trie-like command completion over hyphens. Since you seem interested in norwegian IT history, around 1988 ND had a dept in Kiel/North Germany where I did an apprenticeship and then some freelance work. They did Pascal compilers in cooperation with CAU (Kiel Uni) there, and a commercial system for public libraries. Very recently, I heard ND also provided computers for controlling parts of the legacy particle accelerators at DESY Hamburg (which is about 3mins from my place).
    - lb1lf 10y ago
      Thank you; that is most interesting. I haven't had much hands-on experience with ND equipment, only significant exposure I've had to Norwegian-ish computer efforts were working on a Tiki 100 for a couple of years - a mid-eighties Z80 box running a CP/M clone OS, cleverly enough called KP/M (Later renamed to Tiko.) Quite a different beast from the ND minis! It would make sense that ND had deliveries to DESY - when I was in university (2000-ish), the CS department still had lots of posters on display showing ND equipment installed at CERN; apparently, someone knew someone who knew someone who needed a real-time setup for particle accelerators - and a couple of racks of NORDs running SINTRAN fit the bill nicely. By the way, the most exotic ND product I've heard of was a 28-bit mini made to circumvent COCOM rules - I can only guess that it specifically forbade export of 32-bit machines to COCOM countries. So, what does an enterprising supplier do? Neuter a 32-bit machine into 28-bit and sell them like hotcakes... :) (I'll have to look that one up one day; I only heard of it over beers (multiple!) at a faculty Christmas party fifteen years ago.)

__michaelg 10y ago

Looks like a scan of a German book or paper. Any idea which one?