Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bellcore!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!usc!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!basset.utah.edu!haas
From: haas%basset.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Walt Haas)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Little Big Lan ($75 network)
Message-ID: <1990Dec13.081037.11753@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 90 15:10:36 GMT
References: <1008.27671B24@weyr.FIDONET.ORG>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 41

In article <1008.27671B24@weyr.FIDONET.ORG> Tim.Radbourne@p5.f60.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Tim Radbourne) writes:
>
> > From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
> > Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam NY
> >
> > Hi, all.  I've been talking with Don Jindra of Information Modes.  They're
> > working on a network that will cost $75 for all the software needed for
> > the whole network.  That's for the *whole* network, not per-node....
> > So I asked him if he asked Datapoint for an ARCNET type code, or the
> > IEEE for an Ethernet type code, and he says "Nawwww, I don't bother
> > much with those standards.  They're all designed by committee, and
> > they've got these huge headers that just slow you down."  He *did*,
> > however, say that he would consider using a type code, but he didn't
> > think it was going to be a problem because he didn't think "the big
> > guys" were part of his market.
> >
> > He (rightly) points out that Artisoft (LANtastic) and Novell don't pay
> > much attention to standards either....
>Don't mess with him!
>
>We need someone to take on Lantastic right now that they 
>have changed their policy from selling their adapter 
>independent NOS at $600 to wanting to licence their adapter 
>independent operating system at $199 per node for software 
>only.
>
>Like he says... Lantastic didn't worry about the standards 
>and it works quite well.
>
>Lets get rid of the beaurucratic baggage where it is 
>unnecessary.

The "bureaucratic baggage" becomes quite necessary when you hook your small
network into a larger, say University-wide, network.  We have had more than
one bad experience with departments that wanted connectivity to the rest of
the world from their small un-bureaucratic network.  In every case the only
way we could preserve the functioning of the rest of the University network
was to insist that they bring their department network up to standards first.
By which I mean at least a proper Ethernet type code.

-- Walt Haas    haas@ski.utah.edu