What protocols did the ARPANET use?

One of the greatest treasures produced by DARPA is probably the collection of early RFCs IENs and other public documents that record the development of the Internet. Try getting equivalent free documentation for ISO OSI or for proprietary technologies like Netware IPX/SPX. In part this is one important reason why Internet Protocols prevailed over the competition. The early RFCs were mostly concise, clear and easy to read and understand (this isn't so much true of later RFCs).

See RFC1

   Information is transmitted from HOST to HOST in bundles called
   messages.  A message is any stream of not more than 8080 bits,
   together with its header.  The header is 16 bits and contains the
   following information:

           Destination     5 bits
           Link            8 bits
           Trace           1 bit
           Spare           2 bits

RedGrittyBrick

Posted 2012-09-27T22:12:30.510

Reputation: 70 632

The protocol went through many changes since RFC 1. One would need to read at least the first 1k RFCs (up until the NCP→TCP migration) to see how it looked at the end. – user1686 – 2012-09-27T22:19:53.767

3@grawity: Yes, the IENs are also interesting. For example IEN2 "We are screwing up in our design of internet protocols by violating the principle of layering. Specifically we are trying to use TCP to do two things: serve as a host level end to end protocol, and to serve as an internet packaging and routing protocol. These two things should be provided in a layered and modular way. I suggest that a new distinct internetwork protocol is needed" – RedGrittyBrick – 2012-09-27T22:23:10.827

Thanks for that answer. I've looked into the early RFCs but could not identify a name for the protocols described therein (other than IMP software). – Holy Sheet – 2012-09-28T08:10:32.970

What protocols did the ARPANET use?

Answers