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Asri-unix.1198 net.works utzoo!decvax!cca!sri-unix!mo@LBL-UNIX Fri Apr 9 07:17:58 1982 comments From: mo at LBL-UNIX (Mike O'Dell [system]) Interlan has a Multibus 10 Meg Ether for about $2500 I believe. Tell the you know of the forthcoming price reduction.

As for communications, I want to pour some of the cold water of reality on these wonderous discussions.

If you are a local network research person, you are well aware of the incredible fiascos going on in both standards efforts (IEEE 802-ring circus)(double pun??) and everyone building networks going off and inventing a new access protocol. Even worse, most vendors are inventing their own higher-level protocols, many of which are proprietary. (Vendor lock-in is a powerful marketting tool.) I also don't buy the statement made in this forum that with this heterogeneity, the work to intercommunicate is linear. There is an N x M getway problem, and gateways are VERY hard when you DON'T have to do protocol translation. If you want systems which will outlive the current market spasms over broadband vs ethers vs rings vs strings-and-tin-cans, the networking must be done in a way which is INDEPENDENT OF THE WIRE, using protocols in the public domain (not dominated by a vendor) and which will be widely implemented. At the moment, IP/TCP/UDP are the only candidates. While they aren't my favorite protocol designs (everyone would change something on anything, given the chance), they ARE being implemented on MANY machines and systems, and they are promulgated by an organization which is so large, it is difficult for it to change its mind. This means an implementation will have a reasonable expected lifetime. And while a poor implementation of TCP may reduce a 10 Meg Ether to a 200Kbaud dribble, that is 200K more than you would have if the box at the other end spoke something you don't.

There will be systems capable of acting as glue to bind this heterogeneous world together. You will probably want some access to Xerox NS because if Xerox ever releases Interpress (which appears to be in question), you want to be able to send you document to the Laser down the hall even though your machine speaks IP/TCP.

What this is really saying is that the world is VERY heterogeneous and will continue to be into the forseeable future. I get very nervous when people start talking about systems which don't realize this or honor its impact. Any system which goes off in the corner and does yet another design as if its the only network in the world, or the only protocol in the world, or the only anything else in the world might as well be written in assembler language.

Here at LBL, we have learned why the greatest evolutionary lever is currently possessed by the tortise: he takes his shell with him where-ever he goes. Unless an organizations plans to get in bed with one vendor and buy only that vendor's equipment from here to eternity, you CANNOT do things permanently wedded to one particular system. (Even then, vendors do stop making hardware and do stop supporting software.) Sometimes this means you can't exploit every little frob, but we don't program in assembler either. And while the tortise is a bit slower and not quite as thoroughly-modern as some of this compatriots, he has outlived them all. If this sounds overly dogmatic, it is, but the point is to question whether the evolution of workstations, this grand ticket to a distributed world, is going to commit the same old mistakes, only in more virulent forms.

The introduction of any new technology much include planning for is inevitable obsolecence.

-Mike

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