|
|
|
| Authored by: DieterWasDriving on Wednesday, July 25 2012 @ 12:43 PM EDT |
Not only a profound misunderstanding, the story demonstrates a complete lack of
research.
The Internet had no dependence on Ethernet.
Until about 1982 or 1983 there were several other LANs that might have captured
the market instead of Xerox Ethernet.
Most of these networks types were readily connected to ARPAnet through routers.
Some were even significantly easier to connect.
I worked on machines connected by Chaosnet, which had several advantages over
Ethernet. (Of course it had disadvantages as well.) Indeed, many of Ethernet's
characteristics were less than optimal for the Internet and TCP/IP. The 6 byte
MAC addresses were awkwardly large, especially compared with how few nodes could
share a cable. MAC addresses aren't used beyond the local network, so the extra
size has not value. Ethernet requires a minimum 56 byte packet, and has a
roughly 1500 byte maximum payload, neither of which works well with typical
TCP/IP traffic.
I could go on and on. But the bottom line is that Ethernet is nothing at all
like TCP/IP, and vice versa. If Ethernet hadn't been developed, we would still
have the Internet. If the Internet didn't happen, Ethernet would probably have
been forgotten. We would likely live in a world of paid, walled gardens with
the equivalent of an ATM link from each rented terminal permanently dialed into
AOL or Compuserve.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
