Jan 22, 2024 12:28:00

[Obituary] David L. Mills, who invented the 'NTP protocol' to synchronize system time via the Internet, dies at the age of 85

by David Woolley

David L. Mills , a computer scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Delaware, passed away on January 17, 2024 at the age of 85. Mr. Mills is known for developing the protocol ``

NTP (Network Time Protocol)' ' for synchronizing computer system time via a network, and is said to be a symbol of the early Internet.

[ih] Dave Mills has passed away
https://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/2024-January/009265.html

Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85 | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/inventor-of-ntp-protocol-that-keeps-time-on-billions-of-devices-dies-at-age-85/

Mr. Mills, who earned a doctorate in computer and communication science from the University of Michigan, worked at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA ) while attending the University of Michigan, where he entered problems into computers and had them print out the results. I was involved in the ' (PDF file) CONCOMP ' project, which aims to communicate like a conversation.

In 1977, Mr. Mills began working for communications satellite company COMSAT. COMSAT is involved in ARPANET , the predecessor of the Internet. Since ARPANET was experimental, connection errors often occurred, one of which was an error in the system clock built into the connected computer. Even when distant computers are connected by telephone lines, if the computers have different system clocks, the data exchanged is unreliable and can cause errors.

by ITU Pictures

So Mr. Mills built NTP to solve the problem of synchronizing the time of computers connected to System/360. NTP was released as a demonstration in 1979, and a published protocol was documented in 1981 following Mills' improvements. After that, national astronomical observatories and research organizations in various countries released ``NTP servers'' that distributed NTP synchronization time, making it possible for computers all over the world to instantly synchronize to the correct time.

Additionally, Mr. Mills is developing the core technology of PDP-11- based fuzzball routers and FTP. It can be said that the ability of modern computers to connect and communicate via the Internet is largely due to Mr. Mills' achievements.

Mr. Mills was a professor at the University of Delaware from 1986 to 2008, and after his retirement he served as an adjunct lecturer and later became professor emeritus. You can watch part of Mills' lecture given at the University of Delaware in 2005 below.

A Maze of Twisty, Turney Passages - Routing in the Internet Swamp by David L. Mills - YouTube


Mr. Mills also became a Fellow of the Computer Engineers Society of Japan in 1999 and the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) in 2002, and received the IEEE Internet Award in 2013 for 'contributions to network protocols and timekeeping in the development of the Internet.' He has won awards and is widely recognized for his achievements.

Mills' death was announced by Vinton Cerf, the creator of the TCP/IP protocol, on the ISOC (Internet Society) mailing list. Mr. Cerf commented, ``Mr. Mills passed away quietly on January 17, 2024. He was a symbol of the early Internet.''