IEN 45
Section 2.4.4.5
















                  TCP Checksum Function Design



                       William W. Plummer


                  Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.
                        50 Moulton Street
                      Cambridge MA   02138


                           5 June 1978

Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer




1.      Introduction

Checksums  are  included  in  packets  in   order   that   errors
encountered  during  transmission  may be detected.  For Internet
protocols such as TCP [1,9] this is especially important  because
packets  may  have  to cross wireless networks such as the Packet
Radio Network  [2]  and  Atlantic  Satellite  Network  [3]  where
packets  may  be  corrupted.  Internet protocols (e.g., those for
real time speech transmission) can tolerate a  certain  level  of
transmission  errors  and  forward error correction techniques or
possibly no checksum at all might be better.  The focus  in  this
paper  is  on  checksum functions for protocols such as TCP where
the required reliable delivery is achieved by retransmission.

Even if the checksum appears good on a  message  which  has  been
received, the message may still contain an undetected error.  The
probability of this is bounded by 2**(-C) where  C  is the number
of  checksum bits.  Errors can arise from hardware (and software)
malfunctions as well as transmission  errors.   Hardware  induced
errors  are  usually manifested in certain well known ways and it
is desirable to account for this in the design  of  the  checksum
function.  Ideally no error of the "common hardware failure" type
would go undetected.

An  example  of  a  failure  that  the  current checksum function
handles successfully is picking up a bit in the network interface
(or I/O buss, memory channel, etc.).  This will always render the
checksum bad.  For an example of  how  the  current  function  is
inadequate, assume that a control signal stops functioning in the
network  interface and the interface stores zeros in place of the
real data.  These  "all  zero"  messages  appear  to  have  valid
checksums.   Noise  on the "There's Your Bit" line of the ARPANET
Interface [4] may go undetected because the extra bits input  may
cause  the  checksum  to be perturbed (i.e., shifted) in the same
way as the data was.

Although messages containing undetected errors will  occasionally
be  passed  to  higher levels of protocol, it is likely that they
will not make sense at that level.  In the case of TCP most  such
messages will be ignored, but some could cause a connection to be
aborted.   Garbled  data could be viewed as a problem for a layer
of protocol above TCP which itself may have a checksuming scheme.

This paper is the first step in design of a new checksum function
for TCP  and  some  other  Internet  protocols.   Several  useful
properties  of  the current function are identified.  If possible


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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


these should be retained  in  any  new  function.   A  number  of
plausible  checksum  schemes are investigated.  Of these only the
"product code" seems to be simple enough for consideration.


2.      The Current TCP Checksum Function

The current function is  oriented  towards  sixteen-bit  machines
such  as  the PDP-11 but can be computed easily on other machines
(e.g., PDP-10).  A packet is thought of as  a  string  of  16-bit
bytes  and the checksum function is the one's complement sum (add
with  end-around  carry)  of  those  bytes.   It  is  the   one's
complement  of  this sum which is stored in the checksum field of
the TCP header.  Before computing the checksum value, the  sender
places  a  zero  in  the  checksum  field  of the packet.  If the
checksum value computed by a receiver of the packet is zero,  the
packet  is  assumed  to  be  valid.  This is a consequence of the
"negative" number in the checksum field  exactly  cancelling  the
contribution of the rest of the packet.

Ignoring  the  difficulty  of  actually  evaluating  the checksum
function for a given  packet,  the  way  of  using  the  checksum
described  above  is quite simple, but it assumes some properties
of the checksum operator (one's complement addition, "+" in  what
follows):


  (P1)    +  is commutative.  Thus, the  order  in  which
        the   16-bit   bytes   are  "added"  together  is
        unimportant.

  (P2)    +  has  at  least  one  identity  element  (The
        current  function  has  two:  +0  and  -0).  This
        allows  the  sender  to  compute   the   checksum
        function by placing a zero in the packet checksum
        field before computing the value.

  (P3)    +  has an  inverse.   Thus,  the  receiver  may
        evaluate the checksum function and expect a zero.

  (P4)    +  is associative, allowing the checksum  field
        to be anywhere in the packet and the 16-bit bytes
        to be scanned sequentially.

Mathematically, these properties of the binary operation "+" over
the set of 16-bit numbers forms an Abelian group [5].  Of course,
there  are  many Abelian groups but not all would be satisfactory
for  use  as  checksum  operators.   (Another  operator   readily


                              - 2 -

Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


available  in  the  PDP-11  instruction set that has all of these
properties is exclusive-OR, but XOR is unsatisfactory  for  other
reasons.)

Albeit imprecise, another property which must be preserved in any
future checksum scheme is:

  (P5)    +  is fast to compute on a variety of  machines
        with limited storage requirements.

The  current  function  is  quite  good  in this respect.  On the
PDP-11 the inner loop looks like:

        LOOP:   ADD (R1)+,R0    ; Add the next 16-bit byte
                ADC R0          ; Make carry be end-around
                SOB R2,LOOP     ; Loop over entire packet.

         ( 4 memory cycles per 16-bit byte )


On the PDP-10 properties  P1-4  are  exploited  further  and  two
16-bit bytes per loop are processed:


        LOOP:   ILDB THIS,PTR   ; Get 2 16-bit bytes
                ADD SUM,THIS    ; Add into current sum
                JUMPGE SUM,CHKSU2       ; Jump if fewer than 8 carries
                LDB THIS,[POINT 20,SUM,19] ; Get left 16 and carries
                ANDI SUM,177777 ; Save just low 16 here
                ADD SUM,THIS    ; Fold in carries
        CHKSU2: SOJG COUNT,LOOP ; Loop over entire packet

        ( 3.1 memory cycles per 16-bit byte )

The  "extra"  instruction  in  the  loops  above  are required to
convert the two's complement  ADD  instruction(s)  into  a  one's
complement  add  by  making  the  carries  be  end-around.  One's
complement arithmetic is better than two's complement because  it
is  equally  sensitive  to errors in all bit positions.  If two's
complement addition were used, an even number  of  1's  could  be
dropped  (or  picked  up)  in  the  most  significant bit channel
without affecting the value of the checksum.   It  is  just  this
property  that makes some sort of addition preferable to a simple
exclusive-OR which is frequently used but permits an even  number
of drops (pick ups) in any bit channel.  RIM10B paper tape format
used  on PDP-10s [10] uses two's complement add because space for
the loader program is extremely limited.



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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


Another property of the current checksum scheme is:

  (P6)    Adding the checksum to a packet does not change
        the information bytes.  Peterson [6] calls this a
        "systematic" code.


This property  allows  intermediate  computers  such  as  gateway
machines  to  act  on  fields  (i.e.,  the  Internet  Destination
Address) without having to first  decode  the  packet.   Cyclical
Redundancy  Checks  used  for error correction are not systematic
either.  However, most applications of  CRCs  tend  to  emphasize
error  detection rather than correction and consequently can send
the message unchanged, with the CRC check bits being appended  to
the  end.   The  24-bit CRC used by ARPANET IMPs and Very Distant
Host Interfaces [4] and the ANSI standards for 800 and 6250  bits
per inch magnetic tapes (described in [11]) use this mode.

Note  that  the  operation  of higher level protocols are not (by
design) affected by anything that may be done by a gateway acting
on possibly invalid packets.  It is permissible for  gateways  to
validate  the  checksum  on  incoming  packets,  but  in  general
gateways will not know how to  do  this  if  the  checksum  is  a
protocol-specific feature.

A final property of the current checksum scheme which is actually
a consequence of P1 and P4 is:

  (P7)    The checksum may be incrementally modified.

This  property permits an intermediate gateway to add information
to a packet, for instance a timestamp, and "add"  an  appropriate
change  to  the  checksum  field  of  the  packet.  Note that the
checksum  will  still  be  end-to-end  since  it  was  not  fully
recomputed.


3.      Product Codes

Certain  "product  codes"  are potentially useful for checksuming
purposes.  The following is a brief description of product  codes
in  the  context  of TCP.  More general treatment can be found in
Avizienis [7] and probably other more recent works.

The basic concept of this coding is that the message (packet)  to
be sent is formed by transforming the original source message and
adding  some  "check"  bits.   By  reading  this  and  applying a
(possibly different) transformation, a receiver  can  reconstruct


                              - 4 -

Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


the  original  message  and  determine  if  it has been corrupted
during transmission.

         Mo              Ms              Mr

        -----           -----           -----
        | A |  code     | 7 |   decode  | A |
        | B |    ==>    | 1 |     ==>   | B |
        | C |           | 4 |           | C |
        -----           |...|           -----
                        | 2 | check     plus "valid" flag
                        ----- info

        Original        Sent            Reconstructed


With product codes the transformation is  Ms = K * Mo .  That is,
the message sent is simply the product of  the  original  message
Mo   and  some  well known constant  K .  To decode, the received
Ms  is divided by  K  which will yield  Mr  as the  quotient  and
0   as the remainder if  Mr is to be considered the same as  Mo .

The first problem is selecting a "good" value for  K, the  "check
factor".   K  must  be  relatively  prime  to  the base chosen to
express  the  message.   (Example:  Binary   messages   with    K
incorrectly  chosen  to be 8.  This means that  Ms  looks exactly
like  Mo  except that three zeros have been appended.   The  only
way  the message could look bad to a receiver dividing by 8 is if
the error occurred in one of those three bits.)

For TCP the base  R  will be chosen to be 2**16.  That is,  every
16-bit byte (word on the PDP-11) will be considered as a digit of
a big number and that number is the message.  Thus,

                Mo =  SIGMA [ Bi * (R**i)]   ,   Bi is i-th byte
                     i=0 to N

                Ms = K * Mo


Corrupting a single digit  of   Ms   will  yield   Ms' =  Ms +or-
C*(R**j)  for some radix position  j .  The receiver will compute
Ms'/K = Mo +or- C(R**j)/K. Since R  and  K  are relatively prime,
C*(R**j) cannot be any exact  multiple  of   K.   Therefore,  the
division will result in a non-zero remainder which indicates that
Ms'   is  a  corrupted  version  of  Ms.  As will be seen, a good
choice for  K  is (R**b - 1), for some  b  which  is  the  "check
length"  which  controls  the  degree  of detection to be had for


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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


burst errors which affect a string of digits (i.e., 16-bit bytes)
in the message.  In fact  b  will be chosen to be  1, so  K  will
be  2**16 - 1 so that arithmetic operations will be simple.  This
means  that  all  bursts  of  15  or fewer bits will be detected.
According to [7] this choice for  b   results  in  the  following
expression for the fraction of undetected weight 2 errors:

   f =  16(k-1)/[32(16k-3) + (6/k)]  where k is the message length.

For  large messages  f  approaches  3.125 per cent as  k  goes to
infinity.

Multiple precision multiplication and division are normally quite
complex operations, especially on small machines which  typically
lack  even  single precision multiply and divide operations.  The
exception to this is exactly the case being dealt  with  here  --
the  factor  is  2**16  - 1  on machines with a word length of 16
bits.  The reason for this is due to the following identity:

        Q*(R**j)  =  Q, mod (R-1)     0 <= Q < R

That is, any digit  Q  in the selected  radix  (0,  1,  ...  R-1)
multiplied  by any power of the radix will have a remainder of  Q
when divided by the radix minus 1.

Example:  In decimal R = 10.  Pick  Q = 6.

                6  =   0 * 9  +  6  =  6, mod 9
               60  =   6 * 9  +  6  =  6, mod 9
              600  =  66 * 9  +  6  =  6, mod 9   etc.

        More to the point,

 rem(31415/9) = rem((30000+1000+400+10+5)/9)
              = (3 mod 9) + (1 mod 9) + (4 mod 9) + (1 mod 9) + (5 mod 9)
              = (3+1+4+1+5) mod 9
              = 14 mod 9
              = 5

So, the remainder of a number divided by the radix minus one  can
be  found  by simply summing the digits of the number.  Since the
radix in the TCP case has been chosen to be  2**16 and the  check
factor is  2**16 - 1, a message can quickly be checked by summing
all  of  the  16-bit  words  (on  a  PDP-11),  with carries being
end-around.  If zero is the result, the message can be considered
valid.  Thus, checking a product coded  message  is  exactly  the
same complexity as with the current TCP checksum!



                              - 6 -

Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


In  order  to  form   Ms,  the  sender must multiply the multiple
precision "number"  Mo  by  2**16 - 1.  Or,  Ms = (2**16)Mo - Mo.
This is performed by shifting  Mo   one  whole  word's  worth  of
precision  and  subtracting   Mo.   Since  carries must propagate
between digits, but it is only the  current  digit  which  is  of
interest, one's complement arithmetic is used.

        (2**16)Mo =  Mo0 + Mo1 + Mo2 + ... + MoX +  0
            -  Mo =    - ( Mo0 + Mo1 + ......... + MoX)
        ---------    ----------------------------------
           Ms     =  Ms0 + Ms1 + ...             - MoX

A  loop  which  implements  this  function on a PDP-11 might look
like:

        LOOP:   MOV -2(R2),R0   ; Next byte of (2**16)Mo
                SBC R0          ; Propagate carries from last SUB
                SUB (R2)+,R0    ; Subtract byte of  Mo
                MOV R0,(R3)+    ; Store in Ms
                SOB R1,LOOP     ; Loop over entire message

                ( 8 memory cycles per 16-bit byte)

Note that the coding procedure is not done in-place since  it  is
not  systematic.   In general the original copy, Mo, will have to
be  retained  by  the  sender  for  retransmission  purposes  and
therefore  must  remain  readable.   Thus  the  MOV  R0,(R3)+  is
required which accounts for 2 of the  8  memory cycles per  loop.

The  coding  procedure  will  add  exactly one 16-bit word to the
message since  Ms <  (2**16)Mo .  This additional 16 bits will be
at the tail of the message, but may be  moved  into  the  defined
location  in the TCP header immediately before transmission.  The
receiver will have to undo this to put  Ms   back  into  standard
format before decoding the message.

The  code  in  the receiver for fully decoding the message may be
inferred  by  observing  that  any  word  in   Ms   contains  the
difference between two successive words of  Mo  minus the carries
from the previous word, and the low order word contains minus the
low word of Mo.  So the low order (i.e., rightmost) word of Mr is
just  the negative of the low order byte of Ms.  The next word of
Mr is the next word of  Ms  plus the just computed  word  of   Mr
plus the carry from that previous computation.

A  slight  refinement  of  the  procedure is required in order to
protect against an all-zero message passing to  the  destination.
This  will  appear to have a valid checksum because Ms'/K  =  0/K


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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


= 0 with 0 remainder.  The refinement is to make  the  coding  be
Ms  =  K*Mo + C where  C  is some arbitrary, well-known constant.
Adding this constant requires a second pass over the message, but
this will typically be very short since it can stop  as  soon  as
carries  stop propagating.  Chosing  C = 1  is sufficient in most
cases.

The product code checksum must  be  evaluated  in  terms  of  the
desired  properties  P1 - P7.  It has been shown that a factor of
two more machine cycles are consumed in computing or verifying  a
product code checksum (P5 satisfied?).

Although the code is not systematic, the checksum can be verified
quickly   without   decoding   the   message.   If  the  Internet
Destination Address is located at the least  significant  end  of
the packet (where the product code computation begins) then it is
possible  for  a  gateway to decode only enough of the message to
see this field without  having  to  decode  the  entire  message.
Thus,   P6  is  at  least  partially  satisfied.   The  algebraic
properties P1 through P4 are not  satisfied,  but  only  a  small
amount  of  computation  is  needed  to  account  for this -- the
message needs to be reformatted as previously mentioned.

P7  is  satisfied  since  the  product  code  checksum   can   be
incrementally  updated to account for an added word, although the
procedure is  somewhat  involved.    Imagine  that  the  original
message  has two halves, H1 and  H2.  Thus,  Mo = H1*(R**j) + H2.
The timestamp word is to be inserted between these halves to form
a modified  Mo' = H1*(R**(j+1)) + T*(R**j) + H2.  Since   K   has
been  chosen to be  R-1, the transmitted message  Ms' = Mo'(R-1).
Then,

 Ms' =  Ms*R + T(R-1)(R**j) + P2((R-1)**2)

     =  Ms*R + T*(R**(j+1))  + T*(R**j) + P2*(R**2) - 2*P2*R - P2

Recalling that  R   is  2**16,  the  word  size  on  the  PDP-11,
multiplying  by   R   means copying down one word in memory.  So,
the first term of  Ms' is simply the  unmodified  message  copied
down  one word.  The next term is the new data  T  added into the
Ms' being formed beginning at the (j+1)th word.  The addition  is
fairly  easy  here  since  after adding in T  all that is left is
propagating the carry, and that can stop as soon as no  carry  is
produced.  The other terms can be handle similarly.






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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer




4.      More Complicated Codes

There exists a wealth of theory on error detecting and correcting
codes.   Peterson  [6]  is an excellent reference.  Most of these
"CRC" schemes are  designed  to  be  implemented  using  a  shift
register  with  a  feedback  network  composed  of exclusive-ORs.
Simulating such a logic circuit with a program would be too  slow
to be useful unless some programming trick is discovered.

One  such  trick has been proposed by Kirstein [8].  Basically, a
few bits (four or eight) of the current shift register state  are
combined with bits from the input stream (from Mo) and the result
is  used  as  an  index  to  a  table  which yields the new shift
register state and, if the code is not systematic, bits  for  the
output  stream  (Ms).  A trial coding of an especially "good" CRC
function using four-bit bytes showed showed this technique to  be
about  four times as slow as the current checksum function.  This
was true for  both  the  PDP-10  and  PDP-11  machines.   Of  the
desirable  properties  listed  above, CRC schemes satisfy only P3
(It has an inverse.), and P6 (It is systematic.).   Placement  of
the  checksum  field in the packet is critical and the CRC cannot
be incrementally modified.


Although the bulk of coding theory deals with binary codes,  most
of  the theory works if the alphabet contains   q  symbols, where
q is a power of a prime number.  For instance  q  taken as  2**16
should  make  a great deal of the theory useful on a word-by-word
basis.


5.      Outboard Processing

When a function such as computing an involved  checksum  requires
extensive processing, one solution is to put that processing into
an  outboard processor.  In this way "encode message" and "decode
message" become single instructions which do  not  tax  the  main
host   processor.   The  Digital  Equipment  Corporation  VAX/780
computer is equipped with special  hardware  for  generating  and
checking  CRCs [13].  In general this is not a very good solution
since such a processor must be constructed  for  every  different
host machine which uses TCP messages.

It is conceivable that the gateway functions for a large host may
be  performed  entirely  in an "Internet Frontend Machine".  This
machine would be  responsible  for  forwarding  packets  received


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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


either  from the network(s) or from the Internet protocol modules
in the connected host, and for  reassembling  Internet  fragments
into  segments and passing these to the host.  Another capability
of this machine would be  to  check  the  checksum  so  that  the
segments given to the host are known to be valid at the time they
leave the frontend.  Since computer cycles are assumed to be both
inexpensive and available in the frontend, this seems reasonable.

The problem with attempting to validate checksums in the frontend
is that it destroys the end-to-end character of the checksum.  If
anything,  this is the most powerful feature of the TCP checksum!
There is a way to make the host-to-frontend link  be  covered  by
the  end-to-end  checksum.   A  separate,  small protocol must be
developed to cover this link.  After having validated an incoming
packet from the network, the frontend would pass it to  the  host
saying "here is an Internet segment for you.  Call it #123".  The
host  would  save  this  segment,  and  send  a  copy back to the
frontend saying, "Here is what you gave me as #123.  Is it  OK?".
The  frontend  would  then  do a word-by-word comparison with the
first transmission, and  tell  the  host  either  "Here  is  #123
again",  or "You did indeed receive #123 properly.  Release it to
the appropriate module for further processing."

The headers on the messages crossing the host-frontend link would
most likely be covered  by  a  fairly  strong  checksum  so  that
information  like  which  function  is  being  performed  and the
message reference numbers are reliable.  These headers  would  be
quite  short,  maybe  only sixteen bits, so the checksum could be
quite strong.  The bulk of the message would not be checksumed of
course.

The reason this scheme reduces the computing burden on  the  host
is  that  all  that  is required in order to validate the message
using the end-to-end checksum is to send it back to the  frontend
machine.   In  the  case  of  the PDP-10, this requires only  0.5
memory cycles per 16-bit byte of Internet message, and only a few
processor cycles to setup the required transfers.


6.      Conclusions

There is an ordering of checksum functions: first and simplest is
none at all which provides  no  error  detection  or  correction.
Second,  is  sending a constant which is checked by the receiver.
This also is extremely weak.  Third, the exclusive-OR of the data
may be sent.  XOR takes the minimal amount of  computer  time  to
generate  and  check,  but  is  not  a  good  checksum.   A two's
complement sum of the data is somewhat better and takes  no  more


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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


computer  time  to  compute.   Fifth, is the one's complement sum
which is what is currently used by  TCP.   It  is  slightly  more
expensive  in terms of computer time.  The next step is a product
code.  The product code is strongly related to  one's  complement
sum,  takes  still more computer time to use, provides a bit more
protection  against  common  hardware  failures,  but  has   some
objectionable properties.  Next is a genuine CRC polynomial code,
used  for  checking  purposes only.  This is very expensive for a
program to implement.  Finally, a full CRC error  correcting  and
detecting scheme may be used.


For  TCP  and  Internet  applications  the product code scheme is
viable.  It suffers mainly in that messages  must  be  (at  least
partially)  decoded  by  intermediate gateways in order that they
can be forwarded.  Should product  codes  not  be  chosen  as  an
improved  checksum,  some  slight  modification  to  the existing
scheme might be possible.  For  instance  the  "add  and  rotate"
function  used  for  paper  tape  by  the  PDP-6/10  group at the
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at  M.I.T.  Project  MAC  [12]
could  be  useful  if it can be proved that it is better than the
current scheme and that it  can  be  computed  efficiently  on  a
variety of machines.



























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Internet Experiment Note  45                          5 June 1978
TCP Checksum Function Design                   William W. Plummer


References


[1]     Cerf, V.G. and Kahn, Robert E., "A Protocol for Packet
        Network Communications," IEEE Transactions on Com-
        munications, vol. COM-22, No. 5, May 1974.

[2]     Kahn, Robert E., "The Organization of Computer Resources
        into a Packet Radio Network", IEEE Transactions on
        Communications, vol. COM-25, no. 1, pp. 169-178, January 1977.

[3]     Jacobs, Irwin, et al., "CPODA - A Demand Assignment
        Protocol for SatNet", Fifth Data Communications
        Symposium, September 27-9, 1977, Snowbird, Utah

[4]     Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.  "Specifications for the
        Interconnection of a Host and an IMP", Report 1822, January
        1976 edition.

[5]     Dean, Richard A., "Elements of Abstract Algebra",
        John Wyley and Sons, Inc., 1966

[6]     Peterson, W. Wesley, "Error Correcting Codes", M.I.T. Press
        Cambridge MA, 4th edition, 1968.

[7]     Avizienis, Algirdas, "A Study of the Effectiveness of
        Fault-Detecting Codes for Binary Arithmetic", Jet
        Propulsion Laboratory Technical Report No. 32-711,
        September 1, 1965.

[8]     Kirstein, Peter, private communication

[9]     Cerf, V. G. and Postel, Jonathan B., "Specification
        of Internetwork Transmission Control Program Version 3",
        University of Southern California Information Sciences
        Institute, January 1978.

[10]    Digital Equipment Corporation, "PDP-10 Reference Handbook",
        1970, pp. 114-5.

[11]    Swanson, Robert, "Understanding Cyclic Redundancy Codes",
        Computer Design, November, 1975, pp. 93-99.

[12]    Clements, Robert C., private communication.

[13]    Conklin, Peter F., and Rodgers, David P., "Advanced Minicomputer
        Designed by Team Evaluation of Hardware/Software Tradeoffs",
        Computer Design, April 1978, pp. 136-7.


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