Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Portable Unix boxes [was "Killer Micros"]
Message-ID: <1990Mar16.001139.10160@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Mar6.184634.14749@smsc.sony.com> <36230002@hpindwa.HP.COM> <1990Mar8.210126.11669@utzoo.uucp> <1990Mar11.033429.5732@world.std.com> <10110@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1177@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 00:11:39 GMT

In article <1177@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl> ge@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl (Ge' Weijers) writes:
>... There is a limit, of course, but by using a 100Mhz wide band
>and decent modulation techniques quite a lot of 64Kbit connections can
>be managed. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but the EEC ...
>... have planned precisely such a network for the middle 90s, and
>I suspect the plan is perfectly feasible :-)

That plan probably is feasible; the trouble is that 64Kb/s is far below
the sort of speed many people would like to see.  Try fitting 10Mb/s
channels, or even 1Mb/s channels, in and it's not so easy any more.

Phone companies, accustomed to thinking in terms of modems, seem to feel
that 64Kb/s is an enormous data rate, as witness glowing predictions of
the wonders of ISDN.  And it actually is quite a respectable data rate
if you're thinking in terms of electronic mail, maybe a bit of Usenet
news :-), telnet, and the like.  For distributed applications, it's
nothing at all.  And yes, people will want do such things from their
laptops.
-- 
MSDOS, abbrev:  Maybe SomeDay |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
an Operating System.          | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu