16 Jan
2017
16 Jan
'17
4 p.m.
One thing that I'm unclear about is why all this
Arpanet work was not filtering more into the versions of Unix done at Bell Labs.
The short answer is that Bell Lbs was not on Arpanet. In the early
80s the interim CSNET gave us a dial-up window into Arpanet, which
primarily served as a conduit for email. When real internet connection
became possible, network code from Berkeley was folded into the
research kernel. (I am tempted to say "engulfed the research kernel",
for this was a huge addition.)
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to carry digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
When Arpanet came along MCI was far more eager to carry its data
than AT&T was. It was all very well for Sandy Fraser to build
experimental data networks in the lab, but this was seen as a
niche market. AT&T devoted more effort to specialized applications
like hotel PBXs than to digital communication per se.
Doug
16 Jan
16 Jan
4:22 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Thanks for this, Doug.
When I started at Bell Labs, in the Summer of 1970, my organization was
involved in what I think was called the Digital Data System. I recall that
it was synchronous, meaning, I think, that there were clocks that timed
everything on the network.
Where does that fit into your story?
--Marc
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 9:00 AM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
One thing that
I'm unclear about is why all this Arpanet work was not
filtering more into the
versions of Unix done at Bell Labs.
The short answer is that Bell Lbs was not on Arpanet. In the early
80s the interim CSNET gave us a dial-up window into Arpanet, which
primarily served as a conduit for email. When real internet connection
became possible, network code from Berkeley was folded into the
research kernel. (I am tempted to say "engulfed the research kernel",
for this was a huge addition.)
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to carry digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
When Arpanet came along MCI was far more eager to carry its data
than AT&T was. It was all very well for Sandy Fraser to build
experimental data networks in the lab, but this was seen as a
niche market. AT&T devoted more effort to specialized applications
like hotel PBXs than to digital communication per se.
Doug
4:44 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:00:00AM -0500, Doug McIlroy wrote:
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to carry
digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking. I gave a short talk at Hot
Interconnects in the heyday of ATM. Paul Borrill got me a speaking spot,
I wasn't well known person but inside of Sun I had been railing against
ATM and pushing for 100Mbit ethernet and Paul decided to see what the
rest of the world thought.
The gist of my talk was that ATM was a joke. I had an ATM card (on loan
from Sun Networking), I think it was 155 Mbit card. I also had an
ethernet card that I had bought at Fry's on my way to the talk.
The ATM card cost $4000. The ethernet card cost $49 IIRC.
The point I was making was that ATM was doomed. This was at the time in
history when every company was making long bets on ATM, they all thought
it was the future; well, all meaning the execs had been convinced.
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
There was a shocked silence. Weirdest talk ever, the room just went
silent for what seemed forever. Then someone, I'm sure it was an engineer
who had been forced to work on ATM, started clapping. Just one guy.
And then the whole room joined in.
I took the silence as "yeah, but my boss says I have to" and the clapping
as "we agree".
At the time AT&T was the biggest pusher of ATM. Telephone switches were
big and expensive and it was clear, to me at least, that AT&T looked at
all those cheap ethernet switches and said "yeah, let's get the industry
working on phone switching and we'll get cheap switches too". Nice idea,
didn't work out.
4:52 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
If you think AT&T looked askance at cheap networking, you can imagine what
they thought of cheap telephones. When I interviewed in early 1970 at
Columbus, I recall one of the engineers joking that you'd have to buy one
of those "imitation" phones at a discount store, as if that vision was
enough to kill off the idea.
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:00:00AM -0500, Doug McIlroy
wrote:
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to
carry digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking. I gave a short talk at Hot
Interconnects in the heyday of ATM. Paul Borrill got me a speaking spot,
I wasn't well known person but inside of Sun I had been railing against
ATM and pushing for 100Mbit ethernet and Paul decided to see what the
rest of the world thought.
The gist of my talk was that ATM was a joke. I had an ATM card (on loan
from Sun Networking), I think it was 155 Mbit card. I also had an
ethernet card that I had bought at Fry's on my way to the talk.
The ATM card cost $4000. The ethernet card cost $49 IIRC.
The point I was making was that ATM was doomed. This was at the time in
history when every company was making long bets on ATM, they all thought
it was the future; well, all meaning the execs had been convinced.
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
There was a shocked silence. Weirdest talk ever, the room just went
silent for what seemed forever. Then someone, I'm sure it was an engineer
who had been forced to work on ATM, started clapping. Just one guy.
And then the whole room joined in.
I took the silence as "yeah, but my boss says I have to" and the clapping
as "we agree".
At the time AT&T was the biggest pusher of ATM. Telephone switches were
big and expensive and it was clear, to me at least, that AT&T looked at
all those cheap ethernet switches and said "yeah, let's get the industry
working on phone switching and we'll get cheap switches too". Nice idea,
didn't work out.
7:17 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
This comment reminded me of an internal talk I attended at Bell
Labs. It had the single most powerful slide I've ever seen in a
talk. It was a talk about internal networking, and the slide looked
like your standard network diagram -- lots of circles with lots of
lines connecting them. The computation centers were networked.
UUCP was on there, and datakit.
But dead in the middle of the slide was a circle that had absolutely
no connections with anything. Of course, somebody asked about, and
was told "Oh. That's the networking department..."
As I recall, said department ceased to exist about a month later...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry McVoy" <lm(a)mcvoy.com>
. . .
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking.
. . .
7:21 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
It is pretty stunning that the company that had the largest network
in the world (the phone system of course) didn't get packet switching
at all. I dunno how Bell Labs was allowed to do all that great work
with management that clueless, that's a minor (major?) miracle right
there.
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:17:09AM -0800, Steve Johnson wrote:
This comment reminded me of an internal talk I
attended at Bell
Labs.?? It had the single most powerful slide I've ever seen in a
talk.?? It was a talk about internal networking, and the slide looked
like your standard network diagram -- lots of circles with lots of
lines connecting them.?? The computation centers were networked.??
UUCP was on there, and datakit.
But dead in the middle of the slide was a circle that had absolutely
no connections with anything.?? Of course, somebody asked about, and
was told "Oh.?? That's the networking department..."
As I recall, said department ceased to exist about a month later...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry McVoy" <lm(a)mcvoy.com>
. . .
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking.
. . .
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
7:57 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
note: this is my partisan recollection.
a network proposal would arise from the
previous BIG network failure. it would have
a name like super-colossal-inter-galactic-hyper-
bolic-better-than-last-time network.
it would have merits that spoke to the failure
of the last attempt. then some marketeers
(all sun-tanned ex-IBM executives, i do
remember one in particular -- roger moody)
would try to get bell to warp the engineering
so that they had an advantage from the
inside on content. after all, money was to
be made on services, not transportation.
this would make the engineering teeter
and after more and more "requirements"
it would eventually fall. and then we start
over with "stupendous" added to the
new project name.
thus, it is my opinion that it was totally
impossible to make a network with
engineers direct by marketeers. there
are several things that should also
be understood. the bell vs ibm rivalry;
the new competition on phones;
the desire to be in services and not
equipment.
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:21 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
It is pretty stunning that the company that had the
largest network
in the world (the phone system of course) didn't get packet switching
at all. I dunno how Bell Labs was allowed to do all that great work
with management that clueless, that's a minor (major?) miracle right
there.
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:17:09AM -0800, Steve Johnson wrote:
This comment reminded me of an internal talk I
attended at Bell
Labs.?? It had the single most powerful slide I've ever seen in a
talk.?? It was a talk about internal networking, and the slide looked
like your standard network diagram -- lots of circles with lots of
lines connecting them.?? The computation centers were networked.??
UUCP was on there, and datakit.
But dead in the middle of the slide was a circle that had absolutely
no connections with anything.?? Of course, somebody asked about, and
was told "Oh.?? That's the networking department..."
As I recall, said department ceased to exist about a month later...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry McVoy" <lm(a)mcvoy.com>
. . .
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking.
. . .
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 
11:41 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Less than ten years ago I wrote a big rant at people where I worked about fibre channel:
all our machines had two entirely different networks attached to them: one built on
ethernet which was at that point all Gb on new machines and 10Gb on some (I don't
think that 10Gb switches were really available yet though) & where you could stuff a
machine with interfaces for the cost of a good meal, and where everything just talked to
everything else ... and one built on fibre channel which might have been 2Gb, where an
interface cost as much as a car, and where interoperability involved weeks pissing around
with firmware in the cards, and sometimes just buying new ones. Fibre channel was just
laughably worse than ethernet.
No one listened, of course, because my political skills are akin to those of a goat, and
fibre channel is *storage* which is completely different than networking, somehow.
Perhaps people still use fibre channel.
On 16 Jan 2017, at 16:44, Larry McVoy
<lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
11:45 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Beware of SCSI folks who think they can design data network protocols.
Brantley
coraid.com
On Jan 16, 2017, at 6:41 PM, Tim Bradshaw
<tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote:
Less than ten years ago I wrote a big rant at people where I worked about fibre channel:
all our machines had two entirely different networks attached to them: one built on
ethernet which was at that point all Gb on new machines and 10Gb on some (I don't
think that 10Gb switches were really available yet though) & where you could stuff a
machine with interfaces for the cost of a good meal, and where everything just talked to
everything else ... and one built on fibre channel which might have been 2Gb, where an
interface cost as much as a car, and where interoperability involved weeks pissing around
with firmware in the cards, and sometimes just buying new ones. Fibre channel was just
laughably worse than ethernet.
No one listened, of course, because my political skills are akin to those of a goat, and
fibre channel is *storage* which is completely different than networking, somehow.
Perhaps people still use fibre channel.
On 16 Jan 2017, at 16:44, Larry McVoy
<lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
17 Jan
17 Jan
4:07 a.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
I only used FC when everyone was jumping onto the iSCSI bandwagon for 1gb NICs and you
could get FC stuff on the cheap. I was using the Compaq MSA arrays with a built in FC
switch, and using all like cards on like servers with the then "new" ESX 2.5 and
it worked like a champ. I've always been a fan of separate storage networks but in
the brave new world of virtual everything it really doesn't matter as more and more
moves up the stack. I'm sure we will be on AWS in the next few years then in 10
years there will be the tick tock swing of moving processing into closets and then back to
private data centres...
On January 17, 2017 7:41:16 AM GMT+08:00, Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote:
Less than ten years ago I wrote a big rant at people
where I worked
about fibre channel: all our machines had two entirely different
networks attached to them: one built on ethernet which was at that
point all Gb on new machines and 10Gb on some (I don't think that 10Gb
switches were really available yet though) & where you could stuff a
machine with interfaces for the cost of a good meal, and where
everything just talked to everything else ... and one built on fibre
channel which might have been 2Gb, where an interface cost as much as a
car, and where interoperability involved weeks pissing around with
firmware in the cards, and sometimes just buying new ones. Fibre
channel was just laughably worse than ethernet.
No one listened, of course, because my political skills are akin to
those of a goat, and fibre channel is *storage* which is completely
different than networking, somehow.
Perhaps people still use fibre channel.
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On 16 Jan 2017, at 16:44, Larry McVoy
<lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card
is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet
card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's
gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're
gonna see ethernet over
fiber,
> long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
> going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere." 
5:22 a.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
However, in the high transaction volume corporate world, the FC card is peanuts and the
Ethernet card is peanut shells.
A product's security defense is often said to be inversely proportional to its market
share. So, we chose FC over Ethernet primarily for this reason (not lack of market share,
but for its purported security.)
The cost of an FC solution was absurd when compared to Ethernet by any rational and
reasonable means.
Nevertheless, businesses that relied on these devices for larger volumes of financial
transactions were led to believe that the NET cost of FC was far cheaper than Ethernet.
I complained to our vendor at the time that Ethernet speeds were eclipsing FC. We were
told that the FC fabric was far superior to Ethernet---especially its security.
Hogwash. I remember racks of 2Gb FC switches, only three years old, completely and
totally obsolete.
There are guys like me with lollipops on the cheeks----born every minute.
On Jan 16, 2017, at 11:42 PM, Jason Stevens
<jsteve@superglobalmegacorp.com<mailto:jsteve@superglobalmegacorp.com>>
wrote:
I only used FC when everyone was jumping onto the iSCSI bandwagon for 1gb NICs and you
could get FC stuff on the cheap. I was using the Compaq MSA arrays with a built in FC
switch, and using all like cards on like servers with the then "new" ESX 2.5 and
it worked like a champ. I've always been a fan of separate storage networks but in
the brave new world of virtual everything it really doesn't matter as more and more
moves up the stack. I'm sure we will be on AWS in the next few years then in 10 years
there will be the tick tock swing of moving processing into closets and then back to
private data centres...
On January 17, 2017 7:41:16 AM GMT+08:00, Tim Bradshaw
<tfb@tfeb.org<mailto:tfb@tfeb.org>> wrote:
Less than ten years ago I wrote a big rant at people where I worked about fibre channel:
all our machines had two entirely different networks attached to them: one built on
ethernet which was at that point all Gb on new machines and 10Gb on some (I don't
think that 10Gb switches were really available yet though) & where you could stuff a
machine with interfaces for the cost of a good meal, and where everything just talked to
everything else ... and one built on fibre channel which might have been 2Gb, where an
interface cost as much as a car, and where interoperability involved weeks pissing around
with firmware in the cards, and sometimes just buying new ones. Fibre channel was just
laughably worse than ethernet.
No one listened, of course, because my political skills are akin to those of a goat, and
fibre channel is *storage* which is completely different than networking, somehow.
Perhaps people still use fibre channel.
On 16 Jan 2017, at 16:44, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com<mailto:lm@mcvoy.com>>
wrote:
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
11:43 a.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Oh wow flashbacks to the joys of using ATM LANE over OC-3 as that 155Mb was "so
superior" to 10 Mbit Ethernet and how "straightforward" it was getting
pvp's from the phone company and setting up the LECS, BUS, LES, and each LEC. And
how all the consultants scoffed at PC's with 100mbit Ethernet as the old 33Mhz bus
couldn't push 100mbit in their crazy minds of thinking all buses push data one byte
at a time. It was great once we started to get Cisco fast Etherchannel on the acquired
catalyst switches so we could dump ATM at the core and even better to get those dance
Intel NICs that could also FEC for super high bandwidth servers. It's a shame it
took a while to get metroE and ether WAN, but here we are in that awesome future devoid of
the disaster of ATM as it couldn't even begin to scale at and beyond OC-128, 10 gig E
put an end to all that nonsense.
There was a brief window I made some good money setting up ATM networks, but they all went
from oc12 to at the end being over t1 bonds for rural areas. Can't say I miss it.
On January 17, 2017 12:44:21 AM GMT+08:00, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 11:00:00AM -0500, Doug McIlroy
wrote:
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to
carry digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
AT&T seemed pretty clueless about networking. I gave a short talk at
Hot
Interconnects in the heyday of ATM. Paul Borrill got me a speaking
spot,
I wasn't well known person but inside of Sun I had been railing against
ATM and pushing for 100Mbit ethernet and Paul decided to see what the
rest of the world thought.
The gist of my talk was that ATM was a joke. I had an ATM card (on
loan
from Sun Networking), I think it was 155 Mbit card. I also had an
ethernet card that I had bought at Fry's on my way to the talk.
The ATM card cost $4000. The ethernet card cost $49 IIRC.
The point I was making was that ATM was doomed. This was at the time
in
history when every company was making long bets on ATM, they all
thought
it was the future; well, all meaning the execs had been convinced.
I held up the two cards, disclosed the cost, and said "this ATM card is
always going to be expensive but the ethernet card is gonna be $10 in
a year or two. Why? Volume. Every computer has ethernet, it's gonna
do nothing but get cheaper. And you're gonna see ethernet over fiber,
long haul, you're going to see 100 Mbit, gigabit ethernet, and it's
going to be cheap. ATM is going nowhere."
There was a shocked silence. Weirdest talk ever, the room just went
silent for what seemed forever. Then someone, I'm sure it was an
engineer
who had been forced to work on ATM, started clapping. Just one guy.
And then the whole room joined in.
I took the silence as "yeah, but my boss says I have to" and the
clapping
as "we agree".
At the time AT&T was the biggest pusher of ATM. Telephone switches
were
big and expensive and it was clear, to me at least, that AT&T looked at
all those cheap ethernet switches and said "yeah, let's get the
industry
working on phone switching and we'll get cheap switches too". Nice
idea,
didn't work out. 
2:27 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
The gist of my talk was that ATM was a joke. I had an
ATM card (on loan
from Sun Networking), I think it was 155 Mbit card. I also had an
ethernet card that I had bought at Fry's on my way to the talk.
The ATM card cost $4000. The ethernet card cost $49 IIRC.
The point I was making was that ATM was doomed. This was at the time in
history when every company was making long bets on ATM, they all thought
it was the future; well, all meaning the execs had been convinced.
I cannot speak for the US, but ATM was rather popular in the European
telecommunication in the mid 1990s.
I was e.g. in a EU research project, where I wrote IP-Multicast enhancements
for the FORE ATM driver to support video multicast. From what I know, there may
still have been ATM in the core network of German Telekom when they started
their IP-TV offer that is based on IP-multicast.
So people tried to work around the problems in ATM for a while until ATM was
given up.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg@schily.net (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
joerg.schilling(a)fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/
2:21 p.m.
New subject: TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63
Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
The highest levels of AT&T were happy to carry
digital data, but
did not see digital as significant business. Even though digital T1
was the backbone of long-distance transmission, it was IBM, not
AT&T, that offered direct digital interfaces to T1 in the 60s.
Was T1 a "digital" line interface, or was this rather a 24x3.1 kHz channel?
How was the 64 ??? Kbit/s interface to the first IMPs implemented?
Wasn't it AT&T that provided the lines for the first IMPs?
I was always wondering how they could provide such a "high speed" line in the
1960s.
I hope somebody knows this....
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg@schily.net (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
joerg.schilling(a)fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/
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13 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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William Corcoran