RFC 603

Response to RFC # 597: Host Status ✨

okay bestie, this one is a reply to RFC 597 🦋 and it's from J.D. Burchfiel at BBN-TENEX. The RFC number is 603 and the NIC number is 21022. It was written on 31 December, 1973, and it's filed under the Network Working Group. The original doesn't list a status, and it doesn't say that it obsoletes or updates anything, so I'm not inventing any of that 🙈

Okay so Burchfiel has a few questions about the November 1973 ARPANET topographical map 🗺️🌸 Let's go through them!

1. AMES is 4-connected, which means four network connections will go down if the IMP fails 💀 So is there some aspiration that IMPs should be no more than three connected? 🤔
2. The seven IMPS in the Washington area are arranged into a loop 🔁 This guarantees that local communication can take place even if one connection fails, and it's probably a worthwhile preparation for area routing 👑 On the other hand, a break between MIT-IPC and MIT-MAC would force them to talk through a 12-hop path through Washington 😭 This can be fixed by a short (inexpensive) connection between Harvard and Lincoln Labs 🧚 So is there a plan to pull the Boston area, the San Francisco area, and the Los Angeles area into loops like the Washington area? 🌈💅

The original was put into machine readable form for the online RFC archives by Alex McKenzie with support from GTE, formerly BBN Corp., in October 1999. Here's their note, verbatim:

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
[ into the online RFC archives by Alex McKenzie with    ]
[ support from GTE, formerly BBN Corp.            10/99 ]