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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: RFC2549 revisited
In message <[email protected]>, Crist Clark writes: > >[email protected] wrote: >> http://www.notes.co.il/benbasat/5240.asp >> >> Probably significant jitter on the RTTs though.... > >My personal favorite quote along these lines has always been, > > "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of > quarter-inch tapes." > >Even thought the oft repeated story behind it may not be totally true, > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A678576 > >And of course there are other theories on the origins, > > http://www.bpfh.net/sysadmin/never-underestimate-bandwidth.html For what it's worth, I first heard that analogy -- more precisely, "never understimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of mag tapes going up the Taconic Parkway" in the 1969-1970 academic year. At the time, IBM had a small research lab across the street from Columbia University; I worked there as a systems programmer for an IBM 1130. One of the major purposes of this machine was to act as an RJE (remote job entry) station for some big mainframes at Yorktown Heights; when we were having trouble getting it working, someone uttered -- more likely, quoted -- that line. This is considerably earlier than the Tanenbaum story, though well after the invention of early modems. (For what it's worth, the modem we were using was probably 2000 or 2400 bps, half-duplex; the link used bisync. And it was BIG.) --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
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