Author Topic: Hello... I'm....  (Read 14611 times)

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #15 on: September 25, 2012, 08:21:51 PM »
OK. You probably already know this.

The KA9Q Network Operating System was a serial protocol that preceded TCP/IP. It was used for amateur packet radio back in the days of DOS 286/386  and Apple II+ computers and was used for the original BBS' that evolved into the internet we have today.
Actually, the reason it's called the KA9Q Network Operating System is that I wrote it. It's not a "serial protocol that preceeded TCP/IP", it was an implementation of the core Internet protocols TCP, IP, UDP and a few link and application level protocols such as PPP, Ethernet, AX.25, SMTP, FTP and Telnet. I started in early 1986 (about the time of the Challenger disaster) and pretty much finished in late 1989. I had a lot of help from both hams and non-hams who tested it, used it, found and fixed bugs, and contributed mostly application software. It was the Linux of its day, though vastly less ambitious.

At the same time I was participating in the Internet Engineering Task Force and contributed a number of ideas to the Internet architecture such as the design of PPP  and some features of TCP congestion avoidance. I also devised the IP classless subnet notation "192.168.1.0/24" that we still use today.

I stopped development on my software when Linux and BSD came out. I had written my software as a bunch of threads running in a single address space, and I knew that could not grow very far. So I had always assumed my software would be a stopgap until we could get "real" operating systems running on hardware with memory management. But it was very widely used in its day, including by many early ISPs, and I sometimes wonder if it had a role in getting the world to run the Internet protocols instead of OSI.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2012, 08:27:32 PM by ka9q »

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #16 on: September 25, 2012, 08:31:06 PM »
Actually, the reason it's called the KA9Q Network Operating System is that I wrote it.

Right, well that certainly explains it doesn't it.

I always thought it preceded TCP/IP, but there is no arguing with "the creator"

 

If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #17 on: September 25, 2012, 08:38:15 PM »
I did not create TCP/IP. What became TCP/IP was proposed in the mid 1970s by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn, and they are generally recognized as the "fathers of the Internet". It was published in RFCs in late 1981 and became an official DoD standard in 1983. I discovered it around that time and started evangelizing it heavily, both for general computer networking and especially in amateur radio. This was a controversial idea at the time, and many of us refer to the mid 1980s as the "holy protocol wars". The main point of contention was whether the network layer should be "connectionless" or "connection-oriented". IP is now "the" connectionless network layer, but there were others with very similar designs. And now IP, more accurately known as IPv4, is slowly (very slowly) being replaced with IPv6. Its main feature is a 128-bit address (vs 32 in IPv4), but it is also considerably simpler. We threw out a lot of the complexity in IPv4 that seemed like a good idea at the time, but didn't work too well in practice.

I actually began my software on a dare. When touting TCP/IP for ham use, those who advocated other ideas said it was far too complex for ham use. It was available on mainframes like the DEC PDP-10 and minicomputers like the VAX-11, but it was true that no useful implementations then existed for the small computers then used by hams.

So I started implementing TCP in C just to prove them wrong. My original platform was the Xerox 820, a 64KB Z-80 single board computer available in large quantities for $50 to the ham community. A year or so later I got an IBM PC and moved it to that. And it grew and grew from there.

I like to say that I'm one of a cast of thousands who helped design and build the Internet. And it's true; while a few people like Cerf and Kahn had the original vision, it was a remarkable collaborative effort that could never have been undertaken by a single person or even a small group of people. Good ideas came from many different places, often unexpected.


« Last Edit: September 25, 2012, 08:45:22 PM by ka9q »

Offline jinn

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2012, 01:46:33 AM »
i am new here too. welcome

Offline Peter B

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2012, 09:44:13 AM »
...a father again! Baby girl born on 21 December 2012.

(Now you really know why the Mayan Apocalypse didn't happen! ;-))

Offline gillianren

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2012, 11:44:02 AM »
Congratulations!
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline Glom

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Re: Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2012, 07:03:59 PM »
...a father again! Baby girl born on 21 December 2012.

(Now you really know why the Mayan Apocalypse didn't happen! ;-))

Congratulations, but are you suggesting your daughter is the antichrist?

Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Hello... I'm....
« Reply #22 on: December 27, 2012, 07:18:37 PM »
Congratulations Peter!
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth.
I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth.
I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)