Xref: utzoo soc.culture.british:11801 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:16664 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!corton!gouldfr!vogon!biggles!mickey From: mickey@bigglescetia.dml (M J Dance Account) Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: IP in the UK (was Re: Fingering the English) Message-ID: <1991Jun21.141159.215@cetia.fr> Date: 21 Jun 91 14:11:59 GMT References: <1991Jun17.115011.17634@gdr.bath.ac.uk> <11134@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Jun19.023822.28684@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au> Sender: news@cetia.fr (News Manager) Reply-To: mickey@bigglescetia.dml (M J Dance Account) Organization: CETIA, France Lines: 40 Well, looks like I may well unsubscribe to this group as for the past few weeks the only traffic I have seen is about Janet and ARPA all of which has little to do with british culture (well I suppose that Janet *WAS* set up by british people but hardly a majority of them). ANyway, it seems that people are haggling over time-scales so I'll add my comments. 1) I do not known the exact time scales *BUT* I was doing research in an English university in the period 1984-1987 and Janet was pretty new at that time (althoug it did exist). ARPA net also existed as my research weas in large networks and there were *NO* large british networks so most of the papers I read were from the USA, an awful lot were from BBN on the implementation of routing in the ARPA net. 2) At this time most published material (which of course lags behind installed systems) was about IMPs connecting diverse machines and the word UNIX was almost never seen. 3) The coloured book protocols (Janet) existed but I never saw a working installation (my university was not a very large one) although major (in size) universities were inter-connected. 4) Almost all local network research was based on Basic Block Protocol on Cambridge rings (a sort of token-ring network) which as far as I am aware never left England (well it reached Scotland:)) 5) As a result of this all that I known about TCP/IP I have learnt since (and this learning was more or less obligatory given that I work for a computer constructor that sells work-stations). 6) Perhaps things have changed but all=most all that I learnt about networking protocols (with the exception of routing protocols) during my research has been of no use to me at all. IMHO this is why England lags behind in networking (well that and British Telecoms pricing strategy) For those who are persistent enough to get this far, what are you hoping to achieve. Thos who think Janet is wonderful are not going to change their minds and vv those who think the opposite are unlikely to change their minds. I doubt that those who decide British university policy ever read this group (I even doubt that most of them even use a network:).