Re: capacity v bandwidth

thanks vint! AND believe it or not (now that we know what the room was) it
just so happens there is a "vintage" 1976(!) picture of the NMCC at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Military_Command_Center

yours truly is now wondering what a present day/"modern era" of it must
look like... :)

g

On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 10:47 AM Vint Cerf <[email protected]> wrote:

> Thanks for asking, Geoff.
>
> On my first day of work at ARPA (as it was then called in 1976), I had to
> report to the Pentagon to pick up my DOD building pass. I went into the
> River Entrance and the guard told me to take a seat. Not long after, a guy
> came out of the bowels of the Pentagon, conferred with the guard who
> pointed at me. The man came over to me and said something that I didn't
> really hear [you all know I wear hearing aids ...] but assumed it was
> something like "good morning" - so I nodded and he escorted me into one of
> the corridors. Soon we encountered another guard (Marine, armed) and they
> attached another badge. We continued deeper into the Pentagon, I picked up
> additional badges on the way until we entered a very big space with a lot
> of people with headsets, large displays, even larger displays on the walls.
> I said "This looks pretty elaborate for a personnel office." My escort
> looked startled, turned purple (no kidding!)
>
> "Aren't you Mr. Smith!!??" he said. "No, I'm Vint Cerf. I'm just here to
> pick up my building pass."  My escort fell silent, whipped me around, said
> not another word, marched me through the reverse path, shedding badges as
> we went. I ended up back in the River Entrance. I had just inadvertently
> visited the National Military Command Center. In all the years since,
> despite my clearances, I have never returned to the NMCC!
>
> Vint Cerf
>
>
> On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 12:53 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via
> Internet-history <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> vint, any chance you would be willing to recount to the list what happened
>> at the Pentagon on your first day at ARPA in 1976.. in how you mistakingly
>> got mistook for someone else in the reception area.. and ended up being
>> walked thru multiple levels of guarded "security" checkpoints and ended up
>> in the "War Room" (or whatever it was) instead of the HR office (recalling
>> that ARPA didn't have an HR office)?
>>
>> over the years yours truly has retold that story of yours -- that iirc you
>> to related to us at a meeting or conference or something -- when people
>> have said such-and-such a "security" breach thing was "fake"/"made up" and
>> couldn't ever possibly have happened in real life (such as say the
>> security
>> breach incident in the 1997 movie "Contact" that resulted in deliberate
>> sabotage) where someone "got/slipped through security"
>>
>> g
>>
>> On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 9:07 AM vinton cerf via Internet-history <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> > Yes, I left Stanford in July or August and started at ARPA in Sept 1976.
>> >
>> > V
>> >
>> > On Sun, May 31, 2026, 11:39 Lawrence Stewart via Internet-history <
>> > [email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > … Rummages around for information theory hat.
>> > >
>> > > I don’t think I am alone in holding that things with digital
>> interfaces
>> > > should say “bandwidth” and things with analog interfaces should say
>> > > “capacity”.
>> > >
>> > > The Shannon-Hartley theorem is about the analog part of this.
>> > >
>> > > In the digital domain, I think almost everyone uses “bandwidth” to
>> talk
>> > > about peak available bits-per-second and “capacity” to talk about
>> usable
>> > > bits-per-second under certain loads, queuing policies, and the like.
>> > >
>> > > In the above, bandwidth is absolutely misused for digital circuits as
>> > > compared to its analog meaning.  Capacity, unfortunately, has two
>> > meanings
>> > > and they get muddled all the time.
>> > >
>> > > Language evolves and non of this offends me.
>> > >
>> > > Regarding Vint at Stanford I arrived there in September 1976, and by
>> the
>> > > time I was corresponding with Vint about using Ron Crane’s VDH line
>> > driver
>> > > to get SU-ISL connected to the SUMEX IMP, he was back in Washington I
>> > think.
>> > >
>> > > -L
>> > >
>> > >
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