RFC2549 revisited

Fri Apr 2 01:44:51 UTC 2004

In message <406C5051.80908 at globalstar.com>, Crist Clark writes:
>
>Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu 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