[ih] Datacomputer [an aside, was: Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions]

[David Walden]

Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out.

On April 14, 2018, at 1:17 PM, Miles Fidelman <***@meetinghouse.net> wrote:

Hi Jack,

Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer
Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT
AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex
housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was
attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really -
but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while
trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft.
Oops.

I could have sworn that the DataComputer was CCA.  (Whatever happened to
CCA, anyway?)

Miles

[Bill Ricker]

On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 1:31 PM, David Walden

Post by David Walden
Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out.

Yes, Data Computer and Model 204 are both CCA.

The buyers are "Rocket Software" . AFAIK not Canadian.

At least one of the founders of CCA, Pat O'Neil, was at MIT
immediately before, in the timeframe in question.

[Stephen Casner]

If you'll allow a continuation of this digression, I'll mention that
we in the packet voice project at ISI (titled Network Secure
Communication) worked with CCA in 1977 and 1978 on the Packet Speech
Measurement Facility that used the DataComputer for voice file
storage. (Back then, voice files were considered large, so the large
capacity of the DataComputer was relevant.) Voice connections could
be streamed to or from the voice files on the DataComputer to
implement a "voice message" or "voice mail" system where a text email
would include the access information for an associated voice message.
Not exactly a hyperlink, but conceptually similar. As its name
implies, the PSMF could also perform measurements on the voice files,
such as analyzing packet arrival time patterns.

-- Steve

Post by David Walden
Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out.
Hi Jack,

Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer
Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT
AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex
housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was
attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really -
but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while
trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft.
Oops.

I could have sworn that the DataComputer was CCA. (Whatever happened to
CCA, anyway?)
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra