Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!hedrick From: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: 802 (.2).3 TCP/IP Keywords: interoperability? Message-ID: Date: 18 May 88 23:06:59 GMT References: <1919@ssc-vax.UUCP> <1080@thumper.bellcore.com> Distribution: na Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 11 I certainly agree that 802.3 is useless, and we should have stuck with DEC-Intel-Xerox Ethernet. However what seems to be happening in practice is that older protocols are ignoring 802.3, and newer ones are using it. Thus no incompatibility actually happens. That is, TCP/IP, PUP, and DECnet phase IV are using the Ethernet standards, while ISO and DECnet phase V will presumably use 802.3. For token rings, etc., that have no existing base of TCP/IP implementations, it appears that only an 802.3 encapsulation will be used. So we should not have compatibility problems in practice. That assumes no vendors get overly eager in their standard-following and try to do an 802.3 encapsulation for Ethernet. HP did that, and lost obviously enough that I think other vendors will be discouraged from following suit.