Early Internet & RPC

Readings

kahn1972-resource.pdf

 This is one of the early papers describing the rationale behind the
 ARPANET (which later evolved into the Internet).  For more
 background on the ARPANET, see this video (optional):

 Computer Networks - The Heralds of Resource Sharing
 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4989933629762859961

 Note how both the ARPANET and and standard operating systems were
 developed to facilitate resource sharing.

nelson1981-rpc.pdf

 You only need to read the thesis summary which starts at page 224 in
 the PDF.  If you have time, however, I'd suggest looking at the
 rest, particularly the introduction and related work.

birrell1984-rpcimpl.pdf

 Compare the perspective of this RPC implementation description with
 the more design-oriented focus of Nelson's thesis.

Questions to be discussed

1. What did the (technical) world look like when this paper was

  published?

2. What is the paper about? What are the key ideas? 3. What is the basic argument of the paper, and what sort of evidence

  is used to make the argument?

4. To what extent do you "believe" the argument? Why? 5. What did the authors get right about the future?

  What did they miss about the future?

6. What has been forgotten since this paper?