Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORNELLC.CCS.CORNELL.EDU!MAB
From: MAB@CORNELLC.CCS.CORNELL.EDU (Mark Bodenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Conversion to ISO - Number of NCP Hosts
Message-ID: <8803222119.AA27967@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 21 Mar 88 20:47:44 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 17

Network World, in their March 14 issue, published an article about GOSIP,
and the conversion from TCP/IP to ISO protocols.  In brief, they say that
ISO OSI is in the process of becoming a government standard, supplanting
TCP/IP, but that the conversion may take a very long time.  At the end of
the article, they give an analogy to the conversion from NCP to TCP, from
Kevin Ebel of DCA, and say, in effect, that the difference between the
two conversions is only one of scale.

Let's assume, for the purpose of non-argument, that the analogy is apt.
(I don't think it is.)  Does anyone know what the difference in scale is,
between these two conversions?   How many NCP hosts and routers/gateways/
imps were there at the time of conversion to TCP?  And how many TCP hosts
and routers/gateways/imps are there now and/or will there be two years
from now (assuming that to be the time of the beginning of the TCP->OSI
conversion)?

Mark Bodenstein    (mab@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu)
Cornell University