Joyce K. Reynolds, co-editor of RFCs, has died

Joyce K. Reynolds, co-editor of RFCs, has died(mailarchive.ietf.org)

186 points by hydragit 10 years ago | 9 comments

DanBC 10 years ago |

Very sad.

Jon Postel has RFC 2468: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468

It would be nice if Joyce got something similar, although I guess it's trickier now.

Joyce is mentioned in RFC 1336: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1336

Her section of that is nice, she worked on stuff we've all used a lot.

           Ms. Reynolds has contributed
           to the development of the DARPA Experimental Multimedia Mail
           System, the Post Office Protocol, the Telnet Protocol, and
           the Telnet Option Specifications.  She helped update the File
           Transfer Protocol.  Her current technical interests include:
           internet protocols, internet management, technical
           researching, writing, and editing, Internet security
           policies, X.500 directory services and Telnet Options.

This is what she said in 1992 for that RFC.

           It has been interesting thirteen years in my professional
           life to participate in the Internet world, from the
           transition from the TENEX to TOPs-20 machines in 1979 to
           surviving the NCP to TCP transition in 1980.  Celebrating the
           achievement of the ISI 1000 Hour Club where one of our TOPs-
           20 machines set a record for staying up and running for 1000
           consecutive hours without crashing, to watching the cellular
           split of the ARPANET into the Milnet and Internet sides, and
           surviving the advent.  All in all, my most memorable times
           are the people who have contributed to the research and
           development of the Internet.  Lots of hard, intense work,
           coupled with creative, exciting fun.  As for the future,
           there is much discussion and enthusiasm about the next steps
           in the evolution of the Internet.  I'm looking forward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_K._Reynolds

DanBC 10 years ago | |

This wikipedia article about TOPS-20 and TENEX gives some idea about what they were working with at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-20

>>In the 1960s, BBN was involved in a number of LISP-based artificial intelligence projects for DARPA, many of which had very large (for the era) memory requirements. One solution to this problem was to add paging software to the LISP language, allowing it to write out unused portions of memory to disk for later recall if needed. One such system had been developed for the PDP-1 at MIT by Daniel Murphy before he joined BBN. Early DEC machines were based on an 18-bit word, allowing addresses to encode for a 262-kword memory. The machines were based on expensive core memory and included nowhere near the required amount. The pager used the most significant bits of the address to index a table of blocks on a magnetic drum that acted as the pager's backing store, and the software would fetch the pages if needed and then re-write the address to point to the proper area of RAM.

nissehulth 10 years ago | |

Well said. I was surprised that this link wasn't higher on HN, but after all, it's new years eve.

luckydude 10 years ago |

As someone who has lived through the times where the only real source of good information were the RFC's, this sucks.

Much respect to her and all of the people who worked together. I've often thought that the RFC process was one of the coolest things about our field. Other people think it is open source, I dunno. All those people coming together to work together to make stuff actually work, as in really work, not I wish it worked, but actually work. There were a lot of competing interests that people set aside to get stuff done.

wpietri 10 years ago | |

Truth. For me, coming across the RFCs was better than finding a treasure chest. So much knowledge. And better, so much wisdom about systems design.

luckydude 10 years ago | | |

You might like Mike Padlipsky's Elements of Networking Style.

Out of print but so worth a read.

ddp 10 years ago |

Joyce and Jon were two of the nicest people you could meet. They both left us way too early it seems.

Ms. Reynolds has contributed to the development of the DARPA Experimental Multimedia Mail System, the Post Office Protocol, the Telnet Protocol, and the Telnet Option Specifications. She helped update the File Transfer Protocol. Her current technical interests include: internet protocols, internet management, technical researching, writing, and editing, Internet security policies, X.500 directory services and Telnet Options.

It has been interesting thirteen years in my professional life to participate in the Internet world, from the transition from the TENEX to TOPs-20 machines in 1979 to surviving the NCP to TCP transition in 1980. Celebrating the achievement of the ISI 1000 Hour Club where one of our TOPs- 20 machines set a record for staying up and running for 1000 consecutive hours without crashing, to watching the cellular split of the ARPANET into the Milnet and Internet sides, and surviving the advent. All in all, my most memorable times are the people who have contributed to the research and development of the Internet. Lots of hard, intense work, coupled with creative, exciting fun. As for the future, there is much discussion and enthusiasm about the next steps in the evolution of the Internet. I'm looking forward.