4 ms·

> The "bring the mainframe to the battlefield” is just false It's actually true, more or less. Bob Kahn's initial motivation for thinking about internetworking

> The "bring the mainframe to the battlefield” is just false It's actually true, more or less. Bob Kahn's initial motivation for thinking about internetworking was in order to connect PRNET[0], a packet radio network intended for possible field use by the Army (by using mobile trucks as stations), with the computing power in ARPANET. > As is the idea it was built to withstand nuclear attack Yes, but I don't see that mentioned here. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNET

kristopolous 4y ago
PRNET is based on Aloha, which was already part of a functional ARPANET which had been operational for over 6 years before his 1975 theoretical paper. Citing an academic paper published years after something was built as the inspiration for building that something is just not possible. It'd be like saying Facebook is why Tim Berners Lee made the World Wide Web. The narrative isn't physically possible regardless of arguments because that's simply not how time works. Here's an early network diagram btw. IMP is the network device by BBN (they're still around in mini-museums at some of these sites): https://historyofinformation.com/images/Screen_Shot_2020-09-19_at_7.38.00_AM_big.png https://historyofinformation.com/images/Screen_Shot_2020-09-... The GE-645 at MIT there is the multics machine. The TX-2 at Lincoln Labs was Sutherland's machine he did sketchpad on while that link at Utah is the one that Martin Newell used to collaborate on his Bézier control points in constructing the Utah Teapot in 1975. Every one of these links has a story to tell. None of them however involve wars, battlefields or bombs. I've dedicated years of study to computing history - it's not a supported hypothesis unless you want to handwave and string unrelated things together. DARPA which provided some of the cash, which is the only real link there is, was really unhappy because these researchers just used them for their money - they didn't work on or produce results for them. Go read "where wizards stay up late" for very detailed drama surrounding this. There's a typo at UCLA btw, that's an SDS, not an XDS Sigma 7 (It's a weird typo because it was later sold off to Xerox and got renamed the XDS 4 years later. But here, it's a typo because again, that's how time works). The Illiac IV at Burroughs would have been very interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC_IV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC_IV
- cfmcdonald 4y ago
  I think you're just inferring something that isn't there at all in the OP. Here's what it says: > The book takes us through a series of key moments in the development of the internet: 1969, when the publicly owned Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the first public computer network that became a forerunner to the internet, went live for the first time; 1976, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) linked two networks for the first time in pursuit of its goal to “bring the mainframe to the battlefield”; The only mention of a military application is related to the event of DARPA linking two networks for the first time. This is in fact what happened. That event has nothing to do with the creation of ARPANET, which is clearly mentioned here as a distinct, earlier event. There's no other mention in the article of a military motivation for the creation of the Internet, or other computer technology.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    I've heard the author interviewed twice on leftist podcasts and they also drop the "mainframe on the battlefield" thing in the introduction, on both ... You can read work from actual scholars on this supposed connection, like say Rob Larson, Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley, Haymarket Books, 2020 It's 316 pages talking about silicon valley's cozy relationship with the defense department. Unlike the tech journalist Ben Tarnoff, Rob Larson is a professional historian and so you will note the phantom connection is absent from his work. And it's not like Haymarket Books is politically divergent from Verso, Larson's just a more careful writer. I feel compelled to point inaccurate things out because if people actually take heed and do their diligence on it, using reality should help them better analyze the world around them. We should all strive to have as little nonsense as possible when we're trying to be serious.

kristopolous 4y ago

PRNET is based on Aloha, which was already part of a functional ARPANET which had been operational for over 6 years before his 1975 theoretical paper. Citing an academic paper published years after something was built as the inspiration for building that something is just not possible. It'd be like saying Facebook is why Tim Berners Lee made the World Wide Web. The narrative isn't physically possible regardless of arguments because that's simply not how time works. Here's an early network diagram btw. IMP is the network device by BBN (they're still around in mini-museums at some of these sites): https://historyofinformation.com/images/Screen_Shot_2020-09-19_at_7.38.00_AM_big.png https://historyofinformation.com/images/Screen_Shot_2020-09-... The GE-645 at MIT there is the multics machine. The TX-2 at Lincoln Labs was Sutherland's machine he did sketchpad on while that link at Utah is the one that Martin Newell used to collaborate on his Bézier control points in constructing the Utah Teapot in 1975. Every one of these links has a story to tell. None of them however involve wars, battlefields or bombs. I've dedicated years of study to computing history - it's not a supported hypothesis unless you want to handwave and string unrelated things together. DARPA which provided some of the cash, which is the only real link there is, was really unhappy because these researchers just used them for their money - they didn't work on or produce results for them. Go read "where wizards stay up late" for very detailed drama surrounding this. There's a typo at UCLA btw, that's an SDS, not an XDS Sigma 7 (It's a weird typo because it was later sold off to Xerox and got renamed the XDS 4 years later. But here, it's a typo because again, that's how time works). The Illiac IV at Burroughs would have been very interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC_IV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC_IV

cfmcdonald 4y ago
I think you're just inferring something that isn't there at all in the OP. Here's what it says: > The book takes us through a series of key moments in the development of the internet: 1969, when the publicly owned Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the first public computer network that became a forerunner to the internet, went live for the first time; 1976, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) linked two networks for the first time in pursuit of its goal to “bring the mainframe to the battlefield”; The only mention of a military application is related to the event of DARPA linking two networks for the first time. This is in fact what happened. That event has nothing to do with the creation of ARPANET, which is clearly mentioned here as a distinct, earlier event. There's no other mention in the article of a military motivation for the creation of the Internet, or other computer technology.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  I've heard the author interviewed twice on leftist podcasts and they also drop the "mainframe on the battlefield" thing in the introduction, on both ... You can read work from actual scholars on this supposed connection, like say Rob Larson, Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley, Haymarket Books, 2020 It's 316 pages talking about silicon valley's cozy relationship with the defense department. Unlike the tech journalist Ben Tarnoff, Rob Larson is a professional historian and so you will note the phantom connection is absent from his work. And it's not like Haymarket Books is politically divergent from Verso, Larson's just a more careful writer. I feel compelled to point inaccurate things out because if people actually take heed and do their diligence on it, using reality should help them better analyze the world around them. We should all strive to have as little nonsense as possible when we're trying to be serious.