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Since this is such a weird and wonderful "Geek Poem", some of the terms which would be incomprehensible to those outside the industry appear in red. If you click these, a definition of the term will appear.
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In
C.C.I.T.T., they say ('twas many years ago), They realized I.S.D.N. would be the way to show the nations of the world just how to use existing wire, to provide the kind of services their people might require. To send as far as they could want, the whole wide world around, the bearer bits for everything, from video to sound. In circuits or in packets, from Chicago to Peru, Why, they could even go as far as Spain, or Timbuktu ! And so they wrote the Yellow Book, the Red Book, and the Blue, to document the efforts of that multi-nation crew, holding meeting after meeting to define the interfaces that would take the users' bits around to all these different places. And labeled them with letters such as "R", and "S", and "T", to keep alive, as best they could, the portability of terminals from every land, and every tribe, and nation. (As long as they would follow every rule and rec'mendation). So in the hope of making just one standardized connection from user to provider - not forgetting the protection of each one from the other, they decided that the "T" was where the optimum was reached in flexibility ! And every nation 'round the world agreed that it was so. Except for one - the U.S.A. - which flatly stated "NO !" For in that land the government decreed the N.T. 1 would be defined as C.P.E. when all was said and done ! And in accord the F.C.C. said "Stop this silly game ! An interface at S. or T. would never be the same as hooking up to network pairs : so please make an addition, to specify a point called "U", and heat up competition !" So in hopes of broad consensus in the U.S. industry, in Fall of 1984, T.1.D.1. dot 3 was chartered and convened and given several jobs to do, and one of them - the biggest - was to specify the "U". With Larry Smith as chairman and a lot of clever folk, we listened quite intently as each system maker spoke of how we all would benefit, and get a wondrous blessing by standardizing just the system HE was then professing. But on we went to 85, by then becoming smarter, because we knew that each of us must work a little harder, and look at each and every part of everyone's design, to end up with a system that would work on any line ! We looked at echo cancellers, as well as T.C.M., and knew by Kansas City we must choose just one of them. And as we sat and sweltered in the blazing Summer heat, we slowly came to realize that T.C.M. was beat ! But that was only first among a lot of big decisions. The line code was the greatest - causing many great revisions in everybody's documents and every contribution, until we found we were reduced to absolute confusion ! So thus we started 86, without a real clue, to how we would resolve the code to use upon the "U". And down we went to Florida, to break the strangle-hold of line codes and of Winter, but we only found more cold. But pressing on we talked about the crosstalk interference. And from the math a single model first made its appearance. It was so good it pushed us on, until we then were able to choose some loops that we agreed could represent the cable. Then Dick McDonald started out on writing down a spec which had 3 codes in different parts - and though it seemed a wreck, it served us well by helping us to clarify our thought about the work that still remained - there surely was a lot ! At last we got some papers showing fancy simulations of how the bits traversed the loop, and what were the relations of MDB, 3B2T, 4B3T and more, and that was how we opened up the final line code door to look beyond three-level codes and see 2B1Q : and realize that models showed it really was quite true that it was slightly better than the others - that was plain ! And Monterrey was where we finally sipped Line-Code Champaign !! But e. o. c. and Barker codes, and scramblers caused us trouble. And every time we turned around the work to do would double. With super frames and polar bits, and special line code rates, it turned into the kind of mess that everybody hates. But somehow in the year since then we finally muddled through, and reached the point where there is little left for us to do. The draft is polished up so well that anyone can see its good enough to send it up into the Plenary ! And so we stand right here, my friends, U Interface completed ! A job well done by folks who were not humbled or defeated by all the thorny problems that were thrown into their path. And though we often disagreed, we seldom turned to wrath ! In years to come we'll all look back, and think about today : of all the friends we met and what we did along the way. And though we'll be re-organized, I'm sure we'll all agree : It was an honor to be in : T. 1. D. 1. dot 3 !!!!!! - R. H. Beeman, Vice Chair - T1D1.3 Reprinted from October 1987 'Data Communications' magazine, © October 1987 McGraw-Hill Inc., All rights reserved. Reprinted by kind permission of McGraw-Hill. |
T1D1.3 (prounounced "Tee one Dee one dot three") was the American National Standards Institute body charged with standardizing telecommunications equipment for use in the US on telephone wires, called "loops". I was chosen by my employer to represent their technical interests at the meetings, which were held every couple of months all over the US. After a year on the committee, I was elected Vice-Chair. Larry Smith of AT&T was Chair.
"The Ballad of T1D1.3" was requested from me by the other officers on the occasion of the final vote on the "U" interface standard. As Wes Henry, the Vice Chair of T1D1 put it to me :
So I wrote it and it was presented at the meeting where the completed standard was put out to the general membership for a vote. I am pleased to report that it passed overwhelmingly on the first ballot and became
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American National Standards Institute ANSI T1.601-1988 integrated services digital network (ISDN) - basic access interface for use on metallic loops for application on the network side of the NT (layer 1 specification). |
After this meeting, a reporter from "Data Communications" magazine called our chair - Larry Smith - and asked him if we had an official history of the effort leading up to the decision. Larry said this poem was the best (and only) official history he knew. So Data Communications magazine paid me $100 for it. One of only a few poems for which I have ever been paid money.
Later that year, a framed copy on parchment was distributed to the officers who had been involved in the standardization effort. It is one of my prized posessions.
Since this is such a weird and wonderful "Geek Poem", some of the terms which would be incomprehensible to those outside the industry appear in red. If you click these, a definition of the term will appear.
| Larry Smith | Chair |
| Robert H. Beeman | Vice chair |
| Douglas Zolnick | Secretary |
| Peter F. Adams | Ralph Day | Franklin B. Holleman | Gunter F. Neumeier |
| Oscar Agazzi | Brian Dellande | Hal Holzwarth | Rick Nickells |
| Hassan Bhmed | Jeffrey H. Derby | Joseph A. Hull | Leo Nikkair |
| Nandakishore Albal | Perminder Dhawan | Tom Humphrey | F. Nolke |
| Richard Alexander | Paul R. Dickel | Brian Hurley | Pete Norum |
| Cam Allen | George Doyle | Yasuo Iijima | R. O'Grady |
| Sami Ali | Tom Drury | Allen Jackson | Jens Paetau |
| Robert Amy | Steve Dye | John Jackson | Roger Pandanda |
| T. J. Aprille | Darryl Eigen | Keith Jarett | Steven J. Parrish |
| Victor Arabagian | James L. Eitel | Jay Jayapalan | Michael A. Pierce |
| A. P. Arneth | Youssef Elchakieh | Phil Johnson | Mark Pitchford |
| Ephraim Arnon | Robert Ephraim | Brian Jones | Joseph Podvojsky |
| Saf Asghar | Anders Eriksson | Mike Kelly | Marilyn M. Poirier |
| Sassan Babaie | John F. Falzone | Richard L. Khan | Norman F. Priebe |
| Bill Bahr | R. C. Fang | Darin Kincaid | Frank Principe |
| Ann Banovetz | Daniel Fedak | Fred Klapproth | Shahid Qureshi |
| Gerald Banta | David Fisher | Leslie Klein | N. Ramesh |
| William Y. Barkley | Gary Fishman | Michael Knight | Anjali Ranade |
| Greg Barnicoat | Joseph K. Fobert | Tapio A. Knuutila | Farooq Raza |
| Don V. Batorsky | David L. Foote | Ranjit Kohli | Stephen C. Redman |
| Roy Batruni | Henry Forson | Ghassem Koleyni | Ray A. Reed |
| Robert L. Beebe | Les Forth | Ryoichi Komiya | Dave Ribner |
| Gerard Berthet | M. S. Foster | Demosthenes J. Kostas | Keith Richardson |
| Behram Bharucha | John W. Fox | David Krozier | Anthony Risica |
| Philip J. Bird | J. D. Fraser | Ronald c. Kunzelman | Ken Roberge |
| Kathy Bischoff | Ken Frick | T. Gordon Ladshaw | John S. Robertson |
| Robert E. Blackshaw | Hans-Joerg Frizlen | George Lawrence | John D. Rogers |
| Roy B. Blake | Bill Furrer | Victor Lawrence | Charles E. Rohrs |
| Allan Blevins | Peter Fuss | Joseph W. Lechleider | David A. Roos |
| R. T. Bibilin | James Gaines | Gwong Lee | Tom Rostkowski |
| Vic Boersma | G. Jack Garrison | Stephen Linskey | Gary Rothrock |
| H. C. Bond | Lorenz Gasser | Ming L. Liou | Rudi Rudisill |
| Bruce Bowden | James R. Gault | Fred Loewy | Blair Russel |
| Brian D. Bowsher | Marcie Geissinger | Jim Low | Richard Sakamoto |
| Gerry Boyer | Richard E. George | Paul Lue | H. Sato |
| Richard P. Brandt | Michael Gettles | John Luetchford | Eric L. Scace |
| P. Michael Bray | Jean Giblin | Borje Lundwall | Ian S. Scales |
| William Buckley | Nevillle L. Golding | Milt Lutchansky | G. Schollmeier |
| David R. Cairns | David Goszocoshi | Randall Lytle | Charles W. Schuler |
| Loran Campbell | William W. Greason | Henry Mar | Larry Schwerin |
| C. J. Capece | Peter T. Griffiths | D. L. Matthews | R. A. Shapiro |
| Dorothy M. Cerni | Paul Grossberg | Franklin M. McClelland | Rajiv Sharma |
| Ran-Fun Chiu | Andreas Gulle | Ronald C. McConnell | Chip Sharp |
| Joseph Choghi | John Gurzick | Richard A. McDonald | V. P. Shenoy |
| Brian Cole | O. J. Gusella | Scott McEachron | Jess Sherwood |
| Darrell D. cole | Jerry Hackett | Cheryl McKinley | Steve Silverman |
| Charles Cook | Ron Hancock | Dennis McLaughlin | Don Simpson |
| Fulvio Corazzo | Judith M. Hansing | Thomas L. McRoberts | Josef Singer |
| Alain Cornette | Ray Hapeman | David G. Messerschmitt | Marvin A. Sirbu |
| Simon A. cox | Stephen Harris | Gerry Miller | Fred Skoog |
| Bert Cutler | Alastair M. Heaslett | Robert A. Miller | Jonathan Smith |
| Louis R. D'Alessandro | Tom Heinz | Kenneth H. Molloy | R. K. Smith |
| James Dahl | James R. Hellums | Dave Montgomery | Moon S. Song |
| Per O. Dahlan | Bruce Henderson | Richard Moore | Andrew Sorowka |
| Nabil G. Damouny | Wesley Henry | David Morgan | Douglas A. Spencer |
| James Dan | Greg Hicks | Han C. Najjar | Jim Splear |
| J. Danneels | Bill Highland | Sami P. Najjar | Chris Stacey |
| Harry Davoody | Bill Hodgkiss | S. Narasimhan | Thomas J. Starr |
| Andrew Day | Leon Hofer | John S. Navai | Donald W. Stevenson |
| Martin Stevenson | David W. Taylor | Craig Valenti | David Wolfe |
| Lou Stilp | Tom Taylor | C. D. Vanevic | David Wong |
| Robert F. Stover | Greg Theus | Dick Van Gelder | Kristian Woods-Janghorbani |
| Glenn e. Strohl | Gary C. Thomas | Ruprecht G. Von Buttlar | Steven A. Wright |
| Young-Lim Su | Timothy D. Timmons | R. B. Waller | Robert Wyatt |
| Richard Sun | Michael Toohig | Al Weissberger | Henry Yang |
| Ron Suprenant | Oscar Lopez Torres | Pat Weston | Bob Zader |
| Joseph E. Sutherland | Anthony Toubassi | Sang Whang | J. A. Zebarth |
| K. Szechenyi | B. J. Trivedi | Ron White | Mo Zonoun |
| Tatsumi Takabatake | Stuart Trock | Tim A. Williams | William Zucker |
| Hiroshi Takatori | William F. Utlaut | Harry Wise |
It is very discouraging to see one's own poetry reproduced somewhere and labeled as "Author Unknown". Inevitably, that is what happens when people copy poems and redistribute them. Eventually the attribution to the author and the copyright notice is lost.
My only reward for writing this (besides the $100 I received from McGraw-Hill) is the 15 milliseconds of fame I receive from having my name here. Don't deprive me of that.