Xref: utzoo soc.culture.british:11724 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:16599 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: IP in the UK (was Re: Fingering the English) Message-ID: Date: 18 Jun 91 15:17:46 GMT References: <7957@ecs.soton.ac.uk> <5280@syma.sussex.ac.uk> <7C!+${-@uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> Sender: aro@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 103 In-reply-to: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk's message of 17 Jun 91 07:32:13 GMT On 17 Jun 91 07:32:13 GMT, igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) said: igb> In article pcg@aber.ac.uk igb> (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: pcg> On 5 Jun 91 13:39:32 GMT, grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham S Thomas) said: grahamt> When the Coloured Book software suite was conceived, it was grahamt> (according to my best information - correct me if I'm wrong) by grahamt> no means clear that TCP/IP would become as dominant as it has grahamt> today. pcg> On this I would disagree. At the time the CB were done, the *only* pcg> large scale network, especially in the academic sector, was the pcg> ARPAnet. There were *no* ISO style networks in widespread use, in pcg> the academic sector. igb> But were there TCP networks either? My understanding is that at the igb> time the CBen were being written, the majority of the ARPAnet was igb> running NCP. TCP was certainly not the proven technology that it is igb> now. Yes, buit I was really referring to 'ARPAnet technology', quite explicitly, rather than 'Internet technology'. ARPAnet technology was indeed working, was proven, and was obviously viable, and with an obviousn growth path, and was the only technology for WANs at the time. igb> Remember that TCP was first seriously available in 4.2bsd. I don't igb> have an easy feel for when ``most'' Universities would have had igb> something running 4.2bsd, but I feel certain that the number of igb> Computer Centres who would have traded their big iron for a 780 igb> running 4.2bsd was vanishingly small. That may be right or wrong, igb> but it is a fact. I agree on the fact, but maybe you miss out that ARPAnet was a Big Iron type of network. CS departments with BSD minis were a very late addition, and one that DARPA had to foster by financing the development of TCP/IP for BSD. But the ARPAnet did not start with VAXes and BSDs; initially the ARPAnet was a WAN to which dozens of IBM, Honeywell, DEC mainframes in corporate and Unviersity computer centres were connected. Cost of connection was high enough that few departments could afford it. igb> Additionally the PTTs, especially BT, were installing shed-loads of igb> 8 bit X25. IMNHO they were try to soft pedal introducing X.25 as much as they could, and to install the minimal X.25 services thatthey could get away with, while paying very political lip service to the concept. For an European PTT x.25 networks were a stupid nuisance, a distraction, and an opportunity for computer businesses to corner the lucrative services market while the PTT eked out small money from just carrying the bits around. As of now, advanced X.25 technology in Europe gives you 2400 baud connectivity, just as one example, and international X.25 links are a few *times* slower and more expensive than a TrailBlazer link. Technical problems? No, simple ill will. The IP network that has sprouted recently in Europe puts the PTT run X.25 networks to shame as to bandwidth supported, cost of traffic, and the velocity with which it has been set up. And please note that it still has to run on the incredibly overpriced leased lines that European PTTs deign to offer customers. In Europe you don't get any cheap T1/T3 style links, nor you can set up your own microwave network that easily, unless you are a very big corporation or the military. igb> IP over X25 was inefficient to put it mildly Well, one could have taken ARPAnet technology and run their protocols lock stock and barrel. What we have now *is* indeed IP over X.25, ten years late, even it is not that inefficient, if done cleverly. igb> and without a massive Military-Industrial complex (TM) there was no igb> way that a datagram infrastructure was going to be installed. (**) The UK does have a military industrial complex, and a relatively big one (consider the money spent on military research), but one that is very closed and inward looking. The USA have been luckier in this respect. For example, whatever the nasty militaristic and corporatist overtones of the USA military industrial complex, it funds 60-80% of research at major USA Universities, for example MIT, and in a fairly open way. Unheard of in the UK. igb> (*) Did you know the post office still has a class A IP number from the igb> early days of EPSS? I did not, actually. Amusing little bit of news. igb> (**) Unless you had voted SERC out and taken the MOD instead. Remember igb> who funded most of US Computer Science through that period? This is what has happened, I understand. Reading between the lines it is fairly clear that the military have been leaning quite heavily on the folks at education and industry to get better connectivity to their chummy colleagues across the Pond. Let me guess that since the nice chaps with the Stars and Stripes have very effective intelligence networks based on Internet technology, the UK military have found it very useful (Falklands, Kuwait) to be albe to connect into those. -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@aber.ac.uk