Laroy tells me that routing control for Tymnet II has not been described in writing. That seems like an important oversight as it solved some real problems and also opened the way to simultaneous supervisors. We did not implement simultaneous supervisors but I may describe at the end here what more was needed.

Both versions of Tymnet supported circuits thru the net for the duration of a user session. A packet would arrive at a Tymnet node thru a link, have error control applied to the packet, and then be decomposed into circuit bursts of a few characters. Such a burst would be identified by a “channel number” which was from a name space unique to that link. The channel number served to index into a routing table per link which identified the outgoing link for this circuit and a channel number for the link. The data for the burst was copied into a FIFO buffer for the outgoing circuit. When the opportunity arose a packet was built for the outgoing link which found its data from its buffers. Soon error control for the sending side was computed and packet launched.

A burst is composed of a channel number, an octet count, and that many octets.

Both versions of Tymnet worked like this. They differed in how the supervisor wrote the routing tables. This is a more expansive description than the above and newcomers will need it.

Tymnet I

Each node had a mutable “downstream pointer” which was a link ID to route missives from the supervisor. Missives included a counter that was decremented as the missive was passed on down stream. If the counter was zero then the missive was for the current node and one of the payloads of such a missive was “Change that there routing table entry thus.”. Thus the supervisor knew absolute addresses in several deployed versions of nodes and this was a problem. Here I propose some ideas for PCIe along these lines.

Tymnet II

This was all Laroy’s invention. First the downstream pointer was abandoned. The supervisor built circuits to whichever nodes it needed to talk with. To build a circuit the supervisor required talking to a node at either end of the new circuit. That node would be instructed to launch a “needle” command. Nodes numbered their neighbors with 4 bit numbers and the supervisor knew how each node numbered its neighbors. A needle was a new notion which consisted of k elements for a circuit that was to traverse k links. An element named an outgoing link. The needle would pass thru the net, getting shorter, leaving a circuit behind. The nodes kept track of which channels were in use and the nodes were thus in a position to allocate channels to the new circuit. The supervisor no longer needed to remember channel numbers. This was a big load off of the supervisor.

There was a zapper signal that could be launched under various circumstances that traveled along a circuit deallocating channels and corresponding buffers. The supervisor kept track of how many channels were available on each link.

Tymnet III

We did not implement this but I gradually realized that this plan was close to implementing multiple supervisors. I think Laroy realized this first before Tymnet II was live. Each supervisor would hold some portion of the unallocated channel capacity on each link. Messages between supervisors would transfer such capacity back and forth as needed while maintaining that the sum over supervisors of some link would remain accurate. The supervisors could asynchronously launch needles and nodes could process them in any order. Neighboring nodes would need to coordinate between themselves which node had authority to allocate a channel lest two needle collide on a link in the same channel.

Terminology

Terms in italics are introduced for this presentation. Other terms pervade Tymnet papers.
Node
a real mini computer of which there were roughly 1000 scattered geographically.
Link
a full duplex line leased from the phone company terminated by a digital modem at each end. The modems were connected to nodes.
Supervisor
A program running on some machine larger than a node which directed the creation of new circuits.
Missive
Message from the supervisor to some node. Here such missives concern new circuits.
Circuit
full duplex path thru some sequence of nodes where successive nodes shared a link. Circuits lasted for and served a session where some user who had dialed into some access point attached to node needed to reach some host connected to the network.
Channel
a subdivision of a link. Channels numbers identified data on that link and served as indexes into tables in the nodes at each end of the link.
Packet
A collection of data built up to use a link efficiently. Packets were torn down each time the reached a node. New packers were constructed to carry data on each link. Packets are composed of error control and bursts.
Burst
a few characters from some circuit indirectly identified by a channel number in the burst.
Buffer
a resting point for the data for some direction of some circuit.
Needle
a small data structure created by the supervisor describing a circuit to be built. It is shipped to the originating end of the new circuit and each node reacts to it by selecting a new channel on the link identified in the needle. The needle then passes thru the new channel to the next node.