Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ucbvax!UOTTAWA.BITNET!PETEHIC From: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov (Oberman, Kevin) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: TCP/IP Message-ID: <47926@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> Date: 9 Feb 90 07:47:08 GMT References: Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV Reply-To: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Engineering Lines: 56 In article <90Feb8.205744est.58593@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>, PETEHIC@UOTTAWA.BITNET (Pete Hickey) writes... > >>I apologize for being so ignorant, but what is tcp-ip? What is it run >>on, is like uucp or what? > >Yeah, its kind of like UUCP, but more powerful. It runs on lots of >machines. *Sigh* I hate seeing this sort of fairly useless answer, but it is (a little) better than nothing, I suppose. TCP/IP (tcp-ip, IP/TCP, ...) is the most common name for the DOD Network Protocol suite. It was originally developed in the seventies by a community of people under the auspices of ARPA, a DOD research agency. (Maybe ARPANET sounds familiar.) TCP is Tranmission Control Protocol and IP is Internet Protocol, making tcp-ip a poor name. TCP is often not used. But its use is so nearly universal that I don't see the point in fighting it. TCP/IP includes a rich networking environment which include remote login (TELNET), file transfer (FTP), electronic mail (SMTP), network management (SNMP) and lots of other stuff. The standards are under continual revision and expansion, so today's TCP/IP bears little similarity to that of a decade ago. Even so, they may well interoperate. Because TCP/IP was developed with government money and is not tied to any single vendor it has become the defacto standard for multi-vendor networking and is available from at least dozens, if not hundreds of vendors for virtually any computer system from an PC to a Cray. It is also the standard network for almost all Unix(tm) based systems. While its capabilities are nowhere near as advanced as the proposed OSI protocols (no flames, please), TCP/IP has two significant advantages. It's here and available NOW and in use on well over 100,000 systems and it works. OSI implementations are just coming into being and many important standards for OSI are still under development. UUCP (Unix(tm) to Unix(tm) Copy Program (as I recall)) is a fairly primative but simple to implement communications method designed for the sole purpose of copying a file from one system to another. It has since been adapted for E-Mail use. UUCP is easy to set up and maintain, but is very limited in its capabilities. It is usually used over low speed, dial-up lines and often requires explicit (bang style) routing information. I suspect I could sontinue with this for a week or so, but I think I've described the most significant things involved. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. Also, my spell checker won't work in NEWS. Got to fix that sometime!