Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 11:13:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu> To: Richard Foulk <richard@pegasus.com> Cc: hardware@freebsd.org, bsdi-users@bsdi.com Subject: Re: muliport boards - building a PPP dialup server Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9606301103.A9890-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu> In-Reply-To: <199606301022.AAA13860@pegasus.com>
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I wrote:
> ...stop thinking of Ethernet as an expensive LAN, and start thinking of it
> as a fast alternative to RS232. ...It's a lot better and not
> much more expensive.
I should mention that, at one point, the original inventors of Ethernet
seem to have had just this sort of role in mind. They hoped to make
Ethernet the new RS232, a cheap and universal fast way of interconnecting
computer equipment. Arguably it was a terrible mistake to raise the
speed from 3Mb/s (the original experimental design) to 10Mb/s (the DIX
standard), because it put Ethernet beyond easy reach of then-current chip
technologies, and delayed the advent of really cheap Ethernet hardware by
perhaps a decade.
Henry Spencer
henry@zoo.toronto.edu
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