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The Coloured Book protocols were a set of computer network protocols developed through experience with the Post Office Telecommunications Experimental Packet Switched Service. They were used on the SERCnet and Janet X.25 packet-switched academic networks in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1991 and gained some acceptance internationally as the first complete X.25 standard. The name originated with each protocol being identified by the colour of the cover of its specification document.

From late 1991, Internet protocols were adopted on the Janet network instead; they were operated simultaneously for a while, until X.25 support was phased out entirely in August 1997.

Protocols

The standards were:

• The Pink Book defined protocols for transport over Ethernet. The protocol was basically X.25 level 3 running over LLC2.
• The Orange Book defined protocols for transport over local networks using the Cambridge Ring (computer network).
• The Yellow Book defined the Yellow Book Transport Service (YBTS) protocol, which was mainly run over X.25. It was developed by the Data Communications Protocols Unit of the Department of Industry in the late 1970s.
• The Green Book defined two protocols to connect terminals across a network: an early version of what became Triple-X PAD running over X.25, and the TS29 protocol modelled on Triple-X PAD, but running over YBTS. It was developed by Post Office Telecommunications. These protocols are similar in functionality to TELNET.
• The Fawn Book defined the Simple Screen Management Protocol (SSMP)
• The Blue Book defined the Network-Independent File Transfer Protocol (NIFTP), analogous to Internet FTP, running over YBTS. Unlike Internet FTP, NIFTP was intended for batch mode rather than interactive usage.
• The Grey Book defined protocols for e-mail transfer (not file transfer as is sometimes claimed), running over Blue Book FTP.
• The Red Book defined the Job Transfer and Manipulation Protocol (JTMP), a mechanism for jobs to be transferred from one computer to another, and for the output to be returned to the originating (or another) computer, running over Blue Book FTP.

One famous quirk of Coloured Book was that components of hostnames were backwards compared to the Internet standard. For example, an address might be user@UK.AC.HATFIELD.STAR instead of user@star.hatfield.ac.uk. For more information, see JANET NRS.

The Yellow Book Transport Service was somewhat misnamed, as it does not fulfill the Transport role in the OSI 7-layer model. It really occupies the top of the Network layer, making up for X.25's lack of NSAP addressing at the time (which didn't appear until the X.25(1980) revision, and wasn't available in implementations for some years afterwards). YBTS used Source routing addressing between YBTS nodes—there was no global addressing scheme at that time.

See also

• Internet in the United Kingdom § History
• Protocol Wars

Notes

1. Davies, Howard; Bressan, Beatrice (2010-04-26). A History of International Research Networking: The People who Made it Happen. John Wiley & Sons. p. 3. ISBN 978-3-527-32710-2.
2. Earnshaw, Rae; Vince, John (2007-09-20). Digital Convergence - Libraries of the Future. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-84628-903-3.
3. "Janet(UK) Quarterly Report to the Janet Community: July 1997 to September 1997". Janet webarchive. 1997. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012.

References

• A Dictionary of Computing. Oxford University Press, 2004, s.v. "coloured book"
• Reid, Jim (2007-04-03). "The Good Old Days: Networking in UK Academia ~25 Years Ago" (PDF). UKNOF7. Manchester. Retrieved 2008-04-16. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)

External links

• alt.folklore.computers: "What is the British Grey Book protocol?"
• Janet website

• History of computing in the United Kingdom
• Network protocols
• Wide area networks