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From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: GOSIP and required features that are never used
Message-ID: <8703182124.AA16425@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Wed, 18-Mar-87 16:24:46 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.8703182124.AA16425
Posted: Wed Mar 18 16:24:46 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Mar-87 02:34:20 EST
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scott@GATEWAY.MITRE.ORG writes:
> 	I am reminded of when the government had a requirement that 
> all computers acquired after a certain grace period have an ASCII processing 
> mode (exacting when this was I can't remember).  This hit alot of computer 
> users hard since they were locked into machines produced by a well known 
> manufacturer that used EBCDIC.  This well known manufacturer, seeing his market 
> being yanked away from him, provided machines that had an ASCII mode.  No one 
> ever used this mode but it was there in case the bean counters asked.

My memory may be faulty, but I recall that a good part of the reason that
Sun started supporting bisync and X.25 and all that other jazz was because
many government buyers couldn't buy Suns unless they supported all that stuff,
even if they never used it.  I have no doubt that the well-intentioned
clods pushing GOSIP will have the same effect.  More tax money wasted.