happy bday IGS-R

Hank Nussbacher hank at att.net.il
Fri Feb 16 06:43:09 UTC 2001


At 17:53 15/02/01 -0500, Brent Sweeny wrote:
>On Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 02:27:53PM -0800, Sean Donelan wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 15 February 2001, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> > >
> > > An extra 10 if you have any printed manuals from that far back!
> > >
> >
> > Back then, ALL the manuals were printed.  None of this funky
> > CDROM or download the page from the Cisco web site when your cisco
> > router isn't routing and you can't get to the cisco web site.
> >
> > And my favorite.  You didn't have to pass a test to buy stuff
> > directly from Cisco.  I got my first IGS-R for 50% off because
> > Cisco was competing against Proteon, and the Cisco sales person
> > was happy to sell me one.
>
>I remember way back then, when we were evaluating whether to buy Proteon
>or Cisco, scanning the hosts table (which still listed all the routers
>in the internet then, along with what KIND they were) to see what Cisco's
>market penetration was.  it was growing fast enough that we thought they
>might stay in business.  ;)    it's still a good idea for cisco to remember
>proteon (and what they did wrong), though virtually no one from cisco today
>has ever heard of proteon, too bad--the lessons are still relevant, perhaps
>more than ever.
>
>and the entire manual set (hardware--all 3 models of routers--and
>software) all fit into one looseleaf manual.  i still have mine from 6.x
>and 7.x, though i can't find earlier, darn.

I remember when I did the first router scorecard.  Here is an excerpt:

                   Comparison of Multiprotocol Routers
                            Henry Nussbacher
                             November 1990
                              Version 1.7


                        +--------------+--------------+---------------+
  Multiprotocol         | cisco AGS+   | Wellfleet LN | Proteon p4200 |
  Router                | Rel. 8.1(14) | Rel. 5.40    | Rel. 8.3      |
                        +--------------+--------------+---------------+
  1. General            |              |              |               |
     - # of slots       | 9            | 4            | 7             |
     - Processor        | 30Mhz 68020  | 32MHz 68030  | ??Mhz 68020   |
     - Memory           | 4Mbyte       | 4Mbyte       | 2Mbyte        |
     - Updates via      | ROM, TFTP    | diskette,TFTP| diskette,TFTP |
     - Speed of bus     | 530Mb/sec (a)| 320Mb/sec    | 160Mb/sec     |

Trivia question: name the mailing list used at the time for each of these 
platforms.  You need to know all 3 in order to win acclaim and fortune :-)

-Hank

>         Brent Sweeny, Indiana University





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