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From: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Dhrystone scores for HP9000-500 (really networking)
Message-ID: <527@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 10:22:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: im4u.527
Posted: Wed Sep 18 10:22:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 06:30:23 EDT
References: <1247@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 43

In article <1247@brl-tgr.ARPA> michael%hplabs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA writes:
>In answer to a recent question seen here in UNIX-WIZARDS: yes the HP9000
>can interface to other systems.  It supports IEEE 802.3 with an option for
>Ethernet connection and supporting firmware, RJE, (I have heard X.25 but
>don't find it in the price list), as well as HP's own 500 and 200 or 300
>networking system.

It's good that someone at HP responded.  Unfortunately, that's not really
an answer.  IEEE 802.3 gets you up to the network layer, ISO layer 3,
or at least the bottom half of it, since 802.3 doesn't provide internetwork
addressing.  You still need layers 4-7, especially layer 4, transport.

RJE is an application package whose transport support is not especially
usable for other applications.  X.25 is a network layer protocol.  HP's
500, 200, or 300 networking systems may provide layers 3.5-7, but which
protocols?  If not TCP/IP, XNS, or the developing ISO protocols, they're
not terribly useful.

Perspective:  At UT we run UNIX on machines made by more than half a
dozen different manufacturers, not to mention the TOPS-20, VMS, LISPM,
and other systems.  *All* of them, from small workstations to large
mainframes, can internetwork over our Ethernets and to the ARPA
Internet using the TCP/IP protocol suite.  Remote login, file transfer,
mail, and, on the UNIX machines, remote execution, remote procedure call,
remote interactive conversations, etc.  With the exception of some
of the XEROX machines, which use XNS (we can deal with that), the AT&T
3B machines, which only speak 3BNET (i.e., which can't talk to any
other manufacturer's machines) and the HP machines, which don't even
handle ethernet at the moment.  This kind of diverse networking
situation is quite common at large corporations and universities.

Don't get me wrong:  HP makes what appears to be really nifty hardware.
But HP can't really expect us (or other organizations with similarly
diverse environments) to throw away all our other machines and replace
them all with HP hardware just so we can talk to the existing HP machines.
This means our HP machines sit unused.  Fortunately, they were donated.
One suspects HP would sell more of them if they internetworked.

AT&T has announced that they are putting TCP/IP on their 3Bs.
What is HP doing?
-- 
John Quarterman,   UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!jsq
ARPA Internet and CSNET:  jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU, formerly jsq@ut-sally.ARPA


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