TCP

was conceived in

Cerf, V., and R. Kahn, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication," IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. COM-22, No. 5, pp 637-648, May 1974.

and specified in

INWG GN 72 Cerf, Dalal, Sunshine Dec-74 Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program IEN 5 Cerf Mar-77 TCP Version 2 Specification IEN 21 Cerf Jan-78 TCP 3 Specification IEN 40 Postel Jun-78 Specification of Internetwork TCP Version 4 IEN 55 Postel Sep-78 Specification of Internetwork TCP Version 4 IEN 81 Postel Feb-79 Transmission Control Protocol IEN 112 Postel Aug-79 Transmission Control Protocol IEN 124 Postel Dec-79 DOD Standard TCP RFC 761 Postel Jan-80 Transmission Control Protocol RFC 793 Postel Sept-81 Transmission Control Protocol

IENs from 100 are available at netmirror.org Some of the earlier IENs can be found elsewhere on the net. INWG GN 72 is referenced in Cerf's IEN 151.

With Version 3 original TCP was splitted into TCP and IP. IEN 21's companion was IEN 28 Postel Feb-78 Draft Internetwork Protocol Specification IEN 2 contains Mr. Postel's critique of unlayered TCP.

archive.org has txt and DjVu Versions of "A Partial Specification of an International Transmission Protocol" by Vint Cerf from 1973. The Protocol was then called ITP (International Transmission Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Program) was the Software implementing it.

This Link

on open hardware has been linked before.

Amazingly it is still online.

Remembering IANA

war der Titel des Nachrufs von Mr. Cerf auf Mr. Postel. Mann war der gut. Der Postel natürlich. Nur wegen meiner Wochenendlektüre: http://www.postel.org/remembrances/cohen-story.html ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2468.txt

l.com has got a good link most of the time: Read this on Amazon and Bezos.

Open HW

Didn't know or had forgotten that Open Source Hardware Cores exist. opencores.org has quite a few. An interesting one is: An Open Source ARM Core. You can even browse the VDHL | sourcecode at sourceforge. It seems Konrad Eisele of German Linux fame did it. It's still in beta(0.8) and not functional yet, nevertheless, thumbs up. On the other hand manufacturing this beast will be a different thing. TI most probably won't do it, I guess.

From an interview with Don Estridge

PC: Are you concerned about software piracy?

Estridge: Our plan is to protect the software in a simple way: by impressing users with the fact that unauthorized copying is illegal. If we were to find it being done flagrantly, we would probably take clear action. It is against the law, and it is stealing our assets. Beyond that, software piracy takes all the fun out of the very reason software authors want to participate, which is to be creative and to have a chance to strike it rich through royalties. It doesn't make sense.

PC: Still, even with copy protection, it is still pretty easy to copy a diskette.

Estridge: But it is still wrong, and it is disappointing to me to think that there are people who knowingly do it. It is a form of thievery. I think it is the single greatest threat to the viability of these machines.

PC: Do you think the price of software is a factor?

Estridge: I don't know if you were at the recent Boston Computer Society meeting, but Mike Markkula, from Apple, talked about something that turned out to be somewhat controversial. He said, in effect, "Why don't we forget about having copy protection, let's just don't do it. That way, we'll implement—that is, we'll not copy protect—the code but price everything the same. We could price it on the basis of the cost of manufacturing the diskettes rather than on the basis of the value of the material stored on them." This approach would be similar to that used in the record industry and there is a lot of merit to this idea, but none of the software authors will agree to it.