Talk:Tymnet

That is correct.

I (Paul Martijn) pasted the contents from my homepage http://members.lycos.nl/draken/history.htm (which is the same as http://www.parmasoft.com/, http://members.fortunecity.com/tymshare/, http://www.geocities.com/tymshare/, http://home.wanadoo.nl/lois.martijn/) into wikipedia.

Rgds Paul Martijn (paul.martijn@bt.com)

(c)

(c) is not supposed to be seen around here.

what about deletion? --Abdull 00:02, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I deleted the (C) tag, as what Paul says above seems to me to check out, thus if he wrote the material and added it to the article, it is assigned under the gdfl now. I also added wikify and cleanup tags; there is a lot of good info there, and this should make a good article. Sc147 00:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NPOV problems

Hello:

This article really needs to be cleaned up to conform to the NPOV standard. I recall from looking at the Tymshare annual reports on microfilm at Stanford that the company was badly weakened by the 1982 recession, which set it up for the takeover by McDonnell.

Also, Tymshare's treatment of Douglas Engelbart and its embarrassing failure to complete its office automation initiative needs to be mentioned. Tymshare's shabby treatment of Engelbart is mentioned, I think, in the 1985/1986 Engelbart interview transcripts which Stanford posted online a few years ago, but I forgot where I saw the office automation stuff.

--Coolcaesar 22:55, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some history elements in global international and technology comparison

This is not for direct entry I suppose, but a way to understand the central role Tymnet and Tymnet International played and some of their concepts and experience will probably play in the years to come.

The Tymnet network started in late 60s. Tymnet was first a human user access network (if you do not consider the inter-Tymshare computer connections [Tymcom's]) and the Internet was a computer user access network (this certainly roots the “network centric”/”user centric” network debate - but there are more "internuts" than "oldtymers" left). So it is difficult to say which was the “first”. Tymnet as a system is older, but ARPANET as an intercomputer network is probably older. Internet is datagram based and Tymnet was virtual circuit-switch based upon an extremely reactive and reliable byte oriented approach. OSI attempted a compromise; it is likely that the future will be a hybrid. The first data communications (we would say “ISP” today) bill was on Feb. 28 th, 1972, by Tymnet to NLM in Bethesda at 10 to 30 c/s. Tymnet further on proceeded by the partition of its global system into “externets” (name picked later on from Jon Postel “external networks” since several were using the Tymnet technology) to respect national sovereignties. Internet proceeded from Louis Pouzin’s catenet concept of concatenating networks in single system which both based the OSI and the Internet: it was the DoD doctrine Vint Cerf built on (IEN 48) the Internet architecture (RFC 1958 by Brian Carpenter, current IETF Chair). I met Louis in 1978 when joining Tymnet. We created together Eurolinc for European multilingualism on Internet a few years ago which is active at the WSIS. Just to show the interrelations of the global system sources and their long term continuity and consistence.

The creation of Tymnet Inc. predates end of 1977. The President was Bill Combs. Tymshare Inc.’s Chair and founder was Tom O'Rourke. The international agreements were worked out by Robert Tréhin (Tymnet European Operations) located in Saint-Cloud Office (Paris). CEGI-Tymshare was directed by Jacques Blouet. Bernard Maniglier (further President of Compaq France) was a Sales Director. It was a leading French time sharing service, as a partnership with SLIGOS, which used a Tymnet Network (further used to support Smart Card development). There were Tymshare affiliates in UK (a joint venture with Unilever, directed by Peter Jones), in Belgium, Germany, and Japan. Bob Tréhin lead the development of the International Public Packet Switch networks as a "de-privatisation " of the Tymnet Network after FCC granted Tymnet and Telenet (created by Larry Roberts [ARPANET creator] and BBN [where Bob Khan developed the systems]). This move was supported by a small unit we created in 1978, renamed "INTLNET" in 1982 from the network nickname coming from the "INTL" mailboxes offered to all the public operators. It connected the Tymnet systems by the public monopolies under an ITU framework and some large private systems: French PTT DTRE, BPO IPSS, RTT (Belgium), Bundespost (Germany), Telephonica (Spain), Radio Marconi (Portugal), Radio Swiss (Switzerland), Radio Austria, Televerket (Swedish PTT), Dutch PTT, Irish PTT, Italcable (Italy), etc. A link was provided to BULL for the development of ADA on a Minneapolis Multics, ESA (European Agency was very active). Philips was later on (1980) the first international private system and Data Management in Beirut (1983) the first externet (multiorganization concept passed in the Internet through RFC 920).

In this process Robert Trhéin and Joe Rinde introduced the “root name” concept which is the basis of all the following international deployment (OSI, or Internet) under different flavours, even if the Internet reduces its use to the default (single “IN” class, if you forget the “CHAOS” class). Current thinking on Multilingual Internet and NGN could be based again on its full application again.

Bob Harcharick took over Tymnet in 1979(?). He left in 1982/3 (?) to create MCI Mail where he hired Vint Cerf and Dave Crocker. Don Heath was a Region Manager of Tymnet who followed Bob. (When Bob left, Warren Prince took over as a Tymnet Chair).

Then Jack McDonnell took over as Tymnet VP International and developed the relations all over the world (every international public service started through a Tymnet International liaison through the US IRCs (International records carriers: ITT, RCA, WUI, TRT and FTCC), all of them running their international service - first under Tymnet I and II protocols and/or X.25/75). Then Neil Sullivan took over after Jack McDonnell joined EIA as a VP, Telecommunications. (He further on created TNS Inc, the world leader in network transaction services with several former Tymnet people and a technology benefiting of Tymnet concepts).

I then created Tymnet Extended Services to work on the value we added over telecommunications services (the technical possibility is just now revived due to bandwidth/cup low costs, but the Internet architectures is not yet here [IETF WG-OPES is just a beginning]. The ISIS Club gathers the operators over the Tymnet technologies and propositions. One of the first meetings established the X.75 Vienna version parameters, which were the further reference for international European liaisons. My department ported X.121 in naming and we established the numbering plan of most of the countries (we connected more than 50 different countries on Jan 1st 83 when Internet was created). We linked the DoD in 1984 and the constraints we imposed on naming and development are reflected in RFC 920 of Jon Postel which establishes the DNS naming plan and has strictly been respected ever since, and ICANN claims as the source of its legitimacy (cf. ICP-3). We pasted the standard parameters and this way introduced com, net, ccTLDs (actually Telex codes we used for telex "refillers" [people refilling their traffic under the international packet switch virtual links). The person in charge of the relations with DoD was Jerry Eddgerton (now WorldCom VP). The mistake we made was not to impose X.121 to the private ARPANET Internet network (too bad as we discussed the IP addresses format conflict) we would probably not have the IPv6 introduction problem of today.

Doug Engelbard had joined Tymshare and created the "Augment" division. His propositions were highly appealing. They however (IMHO and long analysis) suffered from two difficulties. Word processing was not really a product for a time sharing company and the PC took over. The "augmentation" theories which still influence all the IETF thinking and the IANA concept (Dong created the NIC as a repository for all the APRANET parameters and documents) did not fit a decentralised and certainly not a distributed network. Tymnet's documentation/brochure was named "Passport to Information" and we (through the INTLNET entity) maintained a common information file (INTLFILE) on every public service their own information centres used (it is still operated and one can find its daily update on the DNS top zone on the NICSO.org site). The idea was appealing to propose International Operators a "Passport" on-line service on Tymnet machines (they all had or had an access to). We investigated the idea very carefully. But we found that the network does not augment the IQ of the user, but extend his reach to pertinence. This lead to a very deep study of a network architecture which may be the very support of a user-centric smart-NGN for the years to come (the network hysteresys is very long). It was bad news for Doug's team, but may be the seed of future. Our studies have stunning similarities with what others did further-on ... or not have yet done. This is not because a proposition/effort does not work or payback immediately that it does not come to fruition. I certainly oppose the basic Doug's ideas on augmentation, but from this opposition Tymnet Extended Services certainly benefited a lot, and further Research – even if IETF has not acknowledged it yet.

JFC Morfin (jefsey at jefsey.com)