Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: WAN Bridge/Router over Fractional T1 (64K)
Summary: Purdue Cypress is dead
Message-ID: <97792@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 17 Apr 91 00:08:38 GMT
References: <1991Mar27.152925.8267@exloghou.portal.com> <EMV.91Apr16152546@poe.aa.ox.com>
Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 39

In article <EMV.91Apr16152546@poe.aa.ox.com>, emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) writes:
> In article <1936@crackers.clearpoint.com> martillo@crackers.clearpoint.com (Martillo) writes:
>>                                             ....  the Cypress Intranet
>>   Network architecture. ...
> 
> I'm not entirely familiar with Cypress, though I understand that it
> has an innovative approach to wide-area networking.


Is this Cypress the one originated at Purdue and was used in various places
in the Internet a few years ago?  The one that CSNET ran with links to
decwrl, sgi.com, Arizona, Utah, Purdue, BBN, and a few others?  The one
CSNET and later Purdue tried to sell as an alternate IP network, similar in
spirit to Alternet and PSI years later?

That Cypress was an interesting gadget.  However, it is less interesting
today for several reasons.  It was different, having its own routing and
layer 3 buried within what looked like a link layer to IP.  The Purdue
Cypress was not bad, but neither was it enough better.  I think I recall
being told by its inventor that he felt its claim to fame was that got
wide-area IP running with almost no hardware and minimal software.

As far as I know, the Purdue Cypress is gone from the Internet.  At least
the CSNET west coast hubs were based on Proteon routers (or is it Cisco?).
The Indiana-California Cypress link disappeared when DEC, Evans and
Sutherland, and Silicon Graphics stopped paying for it.  The CIC had become
less interested in Cypress before Silicon Graphics switched to BARRNet.

Disclaimer:  In my spare time I ported the Purdue Cypress from its native
    Sun-BSD to the SVR3-STREAMS Silicon Graphics IRIS and maintained it and
    the sgi.com link for a couple of years.  I actively investigated putting
    Cypress into the product line.  Since then, I've deleted all of the
    Cypress source from the source trees here and replaced it with a
    compressing SLIP that has been in the product line for about a year.

    If I ever again get some spare time, I want to support PPP.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com