Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Re: Ethernet Address Uniqueness...
Message-ID: <1990Oct14.025517.23959@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <9010121633.AA00795@atlantic.nprdc.navy.mil>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 90 02:55:17 GMT

In article <9010121633.AA00795@atlantic.nprdc.navy.mil> stanonik@nprdc.navy.mil writes:
>The 10base5 NI cards in our AT&T 3b2's were all delivered with
>the same ethernet address...

AT&T has probably been bitten by a problem that has affected a number of
established companies when they tried to build Ethernet gear:  traditional
production facilities have a very strong mindset towards building utterly
identical boxes, and the only thing they are set up to do with PROMs is to
duplicate them.  If you simply hand them the new design and tell them to
build it, the odds are very good that you will get identical Ethernet
addresses, even if it says in the fine print that they should be different.
And testing the new boards one at a time won't catch it!
-- 
"...the i860 is a wonderful source     | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
of thesis topics."    --Preston Briggs |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry