Two protocol suggestions to reduce congestion at swap bound nodes

1. HOST control of ordering of IMP-to-HOST traffic. IMP-HOST protocol now calls for delivery of messages from IMP to HOST in the order in which the IMP received them. This may lead to wasted swapping if, for example, the IMP has messages for its HOST’s timeshare users A and B, in that order, at a time when user B is in HOST core. B would have to be swapped out, A in, and the first message accepted-only to discover that now A must be swapped out and B back in again. If the HOST could a) read the IMP’s queue of waiting messages and b) accept them in the order it found most effective, then a new mechanism for improvement of network efficiency would be at hand. Clearly this change would have an impact on BBN’s IMP software.