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30 Years of IP

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In January 1978, Vint Cerf and Jon Postel released a draft for Version 3 of the Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Program (I'll just refer to it as TCP-3). TCP-3 is an ancestor of the modern TCP/IP protocol and this draft is the first specification I know of that has a split between what's called in TCP-3 the Internetwork Packet Format and the TCP Packet Format. You might recognize these names as resembling the distinct IP and TCP layers. Earlier versions did not have a clear separation of responsibilities and describe a fatter TCP protocol. The actual division of IP into its own specification came a few weeks later.

This breakup into the two protocols didn't come entirely out of thin air. There are articles by Jon Postel from several months prior based on the TCP-2 draft that outlined the different characteristics between point-to-point messaging and end-to-end messaging and why two protocols were needed.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2008
    As I mentioned on the 30th anniversary of IP , an early and fundamental split was made in TCP to distinguish