BBN digest Published for BBN Employees Cambridge, Massachiisells October 1994 BBN Celebrates the Current this month 25th Anniversary of the ARPANET to BBN Celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the On ihe weekend of September 10, BBN hosted a celebration ARPANET. BBN hosted a celebration to honor recognize the achievements and honor the group of people those who developed the ARPANET 1 who envisioned and eleveloped the ARPANET, the computer network that was the predecessor to the Internet. The celebra An Interview with Frank Heart 4 tion, called “The History of the Future: ARPANET, Internet ... Nearnet Becomes Subsidiary of New BBN ISC. and Beyond,’’ comprised several events. With Nearnet^^' and Barrnet^^', BBN has further Among the activities were a press reception on Friday afternoon in secured its position as a leading provider of Internet the Copley Plaza Bar for members of the press, attended by a rep services on both coasts 7 resentative group of the “pioneers,” who worked on the original Affirmative Action at BBN. The company is ARPANET project and on the development of computer networles; working actively on developing its affirmative a gathering at 6 p.m. in the Venetian Room of the Co])ley Plaza for action programs a larger group of the ]:)eople who developed computer networking; a BBN Open House at 150 CambridgePark Drive on Saturday, Voice Commands for Traffic information. BBN Sept. 10, with technology demonstrations, to which press and pio has teamed with SmartRoute Systems to provide a neers were invited; and a gala reception and dinner in the Grand service that allows users to give voice commands Ballroom of the Copley Plaza on Saturday evening, attended by for traffic information 9 more than 350 people, including members of the press, pioneers, BBN Staff News. Employee Anniversaries, Ungar and others associated with computer networking around the world. Receives Award, Papers and Publications, New Friday Press Reception Principal and Division Scientists and Engineers, SDP Publications and Patent Awards 10 At the Friday reception, BBN President and CEO George Conrades briefly described the ARPANET project and the puipose of the silver BBN Reports 13 anniversar)' celebration. Steve Le\y, chainnan of BBN’s board of BBN Business News. BBN Names Fjeldstad to directors, then introduced about 15 of the ARPANET founders to Board. STD Introduces an Internet Server for School the press. Networks. TotalView'^^’ Multiprocess Debugger Among those introduced from BBN were Frank Heart, recently re Available for Alpha AXP Workstation. BBN Internet tired from the presidency of BBN Systems and Technologies Divi Services Corporation subsidiary formed. Expansion sion, who was the principal investigator on the .ARPANET project; of Nearnet to New York. Barrnet Acquisition Ben Barker, then a hardware engineer at BBN responsible for Merges Internet Services on Two Coasts. New designing the hardware interfaces on the original IMP (Interface Training Group/Services. John Kish Named Head Message Processor), and for installing the first IMP at UCLA, and of SPC. RS/1® Release Enhances External Interface. now a senior vice president and chief technolog)^ officer at BBN; MicroNova electronic GmbH to Distribute and Dave Walden, then a member of the ARPANET team and one BBN/Probe Software. LightStream CEO Appointed of the three computer programmers on the project to develop the a VP of BBN. LightStream, BBN, and NEC to IMP, and now a senior vice president at BBN.(Names of current 14 Expand ATM Relationship and recent BBNers appear in bold in this article.) Julie Donahue Named CEO of New Several of the pioneers and a few members of the press gave brief BBN HARK Systems Corporation... 16 spontaneous talks at the Friday press reception, describing their impressions of the early days of netw'orking and the importance of networking today. Other pioneers introduced included Bob Kahn, (continued on page 2) Conneclware, Inc. Bob Taylor, llien Di rector of ARPA’s computer research pro gram and initiator of ARPANET research, is now director of Digital Ec[uipment Corporation’s Systems Research Center at Palo Alto, CA. Barry Wessler, part of the ARPA development team, was cofounder of Telenet Communications Coiy?. and NetExpress, and is now CEO of Plexys international in Herndon, VA. Among others currently at BBN who were early contributors to networking technology are Jerry Burchficl, Will Crowlher, Ken Pogran, Alex McKenzie, Tony Michel, Bob Thomas, and Ray Tomlinson. Tomlinson developed the first electronic mail that could work across many computers in a network, and is now a Principal Scientist at BBN. A number of other BBNers who were in Tlic “IMP guys” ill 1969. Top row: Ben Barker. Second row (I to r): Truett Tkach, Bill Barlell, Dave volved with the ARPANET in its earliest Wrtfdcii, Jim Geismnn, Bob Kahn, Frank Hcarl, Marly Tliropc, Will Crawtlici; mid Severo Ornstciii. years attended the 25th Anniversar}' events, as did many people working at Severo Ornstein, Truett Thach, and Marlin Steve Crocker, responsible for the hard ARPA at the time, or located at one of the Thrope, all of whom were in the original ware and software connections of the original ARPANET sites, or who were at “IMP guys” photo, taken in 1969. first ARPANET computers, is now vice BBN at the time but then went elsewhere. president of Trusted Information Sys (See photo of original ARPANET team in Kahn, a co-author of the TCP/IP protocol, tems. Doug Engelbart, an innovator in 1969 for some of the original ‘dMP guys”; was the founder and is now president of human/machine interaction who is cred see photo taken on Sept. 9, 1994 for a the Corporation for National Research ited with inventing the mouse, is now “recreation” of the original team photo.) Initiatives. Ornstein, who was respon director of the Bootstrap Institute in sible for the ARPANET network hard Fremont, CA. Dr. Engelbart spoke on the Some of the press who accepted invitations ware component, was the founder and is Thursday before the weekend events in to the 25th anniversar)' celebration were now chairman of Computer Professionals BBN’s Guest Lecturer series. from the Boston Globe, Computer World, for Social Responsibility. Truett Thach, Global Nehvork, Injowoiid, PC Week, Net who helped test and install the first IMPs, Len Kleinrock, who developed the basic work Computers, Newsbyles News, The New is now director of Quality and Manufac principles of network communications York Times, and Reuters, among others. turing Engineering at ACC Systems in and was Principal Investigator for the Santa Barbara, CA. ARPA project at UCLA, the site of the Technology Day first ARPANET node, is now chairman of BBN held a Technolog)' Open House in Roland Biyan, Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker, UCLA’s Computer Science Department connection with the celebration of 25 Doug Engelbart, Len Kleinrock,John and chairman and CEO of Technology years of innovation in network communi Postel, btriy Roberts, Bob Taylor, and Barry Transfer Institute. John Posiel, a member cations, on Saturday, September 10 from Wessler were also introduced. Bryan, then of the ARPANET programming team at 10 a.in to 2 p.m. at 150 CambridgePark a principal investigator at the University of UCLA, is now associate director for net Santa Barbara, CA, one of the original four Drive. They showed six presentations, working at the University ol Southern nodes of the ARPANET, is now president and provided bus ser\'ice from the Copley California. Larry Roberts, then Director and CEO of ACC Systems. Vint Cerf, a Plaza to the demo site. Brief descriptions of the Information Processing Techniques of the demos follow: co-author of the TCP/IP protocol, is now Office for ARPA and known as the man senior vice president of data architecture who made the ARPANET happen, is now • Cornerstone Data Analysis Software at MCI Communications Corp. and presi president of ATM Systems, a division of (BBN Software Products Corp.): dent of the Internet Society. Page 2 Cornerstone integrates the key func included demos of both current and • BBN’s Network Operations Center tions required to perform exploratory future technology capabilities, focus (NOC)(BBN Internet Services Corp.): data analysis in an easy-to-use “point ing on projects for the financial and This demo showed how BBN’s Network and click” desktop application. travel industries. The demo concluded Operations Center proactively moni Cornerstone was designed for a client/ with a glimpse at the world’s first tors, troubleshoots, and solves prob server computing environment, where large-vocabulary speaker independent, lems on the Internet, one of the most a user working at a desktop computer continuous speech dictation system. complex networking environments in or workstation can analyze data pulled existence today. The NOC provides • Personal Internet Newspaper—Finding from a database on another computer. services for business, educational, and and Organizing Information on the Inter The demo showed the use of Corner research organizations that depend on net (Distributed Systems Dept., BBN stone to analyze network performance. the Internet for their work. Systems and Technologies Division): • LightStream 2020—Perfect Vision for The BBN Personal Internet Newspaper Saturday Dinner ATM Migration (LightStream Corp.): is designed to help people manage the The presentation discussed how to mi flow of information available on the At the dinner on Saturday, September 10, more than 350 people crowded into the grate to Asynchronous Transfer Mode Internet from email, bulletin boards, bar next to the Copley Plaza grand ball (ATM) networks and provided an and on-line databases. It helps users room for drinks and hors d’oeuvres and overview of the LightStream'*’'^ 2020 select what interests them from the sea a chance to see old friends. Many of the Enterprise Switch, an optionally fault- of possibilities and organize the mate pioneers had not seen each other for tolerant modular device.