Status of the Release of the New IMP System (2600)
A June 1972 update on repeated attempts to bring the new IMP system online.
Walden, D.C., "Status of the Release of the New IMP System (2600)", RFC 359, DOI 10.17487/RFC0359, June 1972, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc359>.
@misc{rfc359,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 359,
howpublished = {RFC 359},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC0359},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc359},
author = {D.C. Walden},
title = {{Status of the Release of the New IMP System (2600)}},
pagetotal = 1,
year = 1972,
month = jun,
} RFC text
Network Working Group Dave Walden
RFC #359 BBN
NIC #10601 22 June 1972
Category: B.1
Obsoletes: RFC #343
I M P O R T A N T
=================
HE STATUS OF THE RELEASE OF THE NEW IMP SYSTEM (2600)
We have still not managed to get the new IMP system up.
To recapitulate:
We tried the first time May 15; but, completely under- estimating
the difficulty of distributing the new system to over twenty-five
sites, we never even got around to debugging the system.
We developed a suitable distribution mechanism and tried again
May 31. This time we got to debug the new IMP system and found a
number of problems which precluded leaving the new system up.
Trying again June 6, we got the new IMP system up and working
quite well, but the version of the TIP system which runs with the new
IMP system wouldn't work hardly at all. So we put the old systems
back up again.
The day before yesterday, June 20, we tried again. The IMPs and
TIPs loaded and seemed to fly quite well, so we left the new systems
up. But by yesterday, June 21, afternoon, with crashes happening in
TIPs at the rate of about one per hour, we backed off again and put
the old systems back up. (One TIP crash per hour in the network means
there is about one crash every eight or ten hours debugging with one
TIP which makes it nasty to debug.)
We plan to skip Tuesday, June 27, and Tuesday, July 4, and to try
again Thursday, July 6 (1972), and if necessary, again on Tuesday,
July 18, and following Tuesdays, as per RFC #343.
DCW/jm
[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
[ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the ]
[ direction of Alex McKenzie. 1/97 ]
ISO Plain Language
On this page
§1The System Was Still Not Up
Dave Walden reports on the attempted release of the new IMP system, release 2600. His opening statement is that the system had still not been brought up successfully.
The report obsoletes RFC 343 and recounts the rollout attempts through June 21, 1972.
The new system had not yet stayed in operation. The report explains what happened during the attempts so far.
§1Four Rollout Attempts
The first attempt, on May 15, underestimated the difficulty of distributing the system to more than twenty-five sites and did not reach debugging. On May 31, the team debugged it but found problems that prevented leaving it up.
On June 6, the IMP system worked fairly well but the matching TIP system did not, so the old systems were restored. The June 20 attempt left the new systems up, but TIP crashes reached about one per hour by the afternoon of June 21, prompting another rollback.
Each attempt exposed a different obstacle: distribution, system problems, TIP compatibility, and repeated TIP crashes. The operators restored the old systems after the problems appeared.
§1The Next Planned Tests
The authors planned to skip June 27 and July 4, then try again Thursday, July 6, 1972. If needed, another attempt was planned for Tuesday, July 18, and following Tuesdays, under the schedule in RFC 343.
The report notes that one TIP crash per hour across the network meant about one crash every eight or ten hours when debugging with one TIP.
The next attempt was planned for July 6, with later attempts if needed. Because crashes were spread across the network, a single TIP could take hours to fail during debugging.