Network Working Group
RFC # 449
NIC # 14133
Updates RFC 442
Dave Walden
BBN-NET
Jan. 6, 1973

The Current Flow-control Scheme for IMPSYS.

    While Vint's notes on IMPSYS flow-control from the March 16, 1972,
meeting (RFC 442) seem reasonably accurate and while he does cite our
Quarterly Technical Report #13, he might have done better to cite BBN's
two formal publications relevant to the IMPSYS flow-control scheme:
  1. McQuillan et al, Improvements in the Design and Performance of the ARPA Network, Proceedings AFIPS 1972 FJCC, pp. 741-754.
  1. BBN Report 1822, Specifications for the Interconnection of a Host and an IMP, December 1972 Revision, section 3, pp. 17-35.

Reference 2 is particularly important reading for NCP programmers -

things have recently changed somewhat.

    The inter-IMP acknowledgement mechanism, described in the last
section of Vint's RFC 442, is also described in reference 1 and an
almost identical mechanism is described in Appendix F of reference 2.
The acknowledgement is of only intellectual interest to most Hosts as it
is transparent to network users.  However, the description in reference
2 is of vital interest to so-called Very Distant Hosts.

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