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From: Ralph.Hyre@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8805030359.AA00385@rutgers.edu>
Date: 2 May 88 22:27:20 GMT
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To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu
Path: ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu!ralphw
From: ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: ISDM
Date: 2 May 88 22:27:20 GMT
References: <8804270327.AA25714@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
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In article <8804270327.AA25714@mimsy.umd.edu> mgrant@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Michael Grant) writes: [about ISDN]
>But in real life, it's definatly a bussiness/electronic enthusiast toy.  I
>can't really see any reason for everyone to run out and get it.  The biggest
>win of it would being able to run video over it, but it's not great video,
>and the video codec's are likely to be *very* expensive.
I'd imagine a market if someone built a box you could plug into your video
camera & TV on one end, and your ISDN connected-PC on the other, plus some 
software, and that's all you'd need.  Today, these boxes are typicaly known
as frame buffers, and you can get them for an IBM PC for about $1000.
TrueVision, and AT&T spinoff company based in Indianapolis probably has 
software for something like this already.  All you really need is some memory
and an A/D and D/A converter, Steve Ciarcia built one for $250 in BYTE,
since you're bandwidth-limited anyway you can get away with switching between
RGB channels on your camera for each frame to hack color.

We have ISDN-speed stuff in Pittsburgh already.  Services are coming.
At CMU we have an option of getting MCN (Metropolitan Campus Network from
Bell of Pennsylvania) service for $25/month.  It currently provides asynch
300-19.2kbps (autobauding to the CO, at least) line running on the same 
copper as phone lines (which you plug into the back of a Gandalf DOV 640, 
probably the same thing Project Victoria used, since the case is the same 
color as a Mac)  Amazingly little noise, my bits never get diddled at 9.6,
at 19.2 they seem OK too.

Real Soon Now, it will be 'uprgaded' to 64kbps, then people will want to run
TCP/IP over it, to support things like Andrew File System and X Window System,
connections.

Disclaimer: I'm just a satisfied MCN user, don't ask me technical question 
about MCN because I don't know the answers.

-- 
					- Ralph W. Hyre, Jr.

Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu    Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK}
Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA