OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks

1.4. The Birth of the Internet

Bob Kahn had for some time during the development of the IMP been worrying about congestion in the network. He theorized that the flow control algorithms would, in some circumstances, allow the queues in an IMP to fill to capacity, causing upstream IMPs to in turn fill their queues. Such cascading congestion would cause the network to lock up. But his colleagues at BBN, despite Kahn’s nagging, were too busy with engineering to spend time on abstractions. They just wanted to get the network up and running; refinement could come later.

So in January 1970, after the first four sites were up, Kahn made a trip to the NMC to test his theories. There he met Vint Cerf, who along with Crocker, Postel, and others helped ...