what about 48 bits?

Mon Apr 5 17:51:23 UTC 2010

On Apr 5, 2010, at 1:43 52PM, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:

> On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:29:20 EDT, Jay Nakamura said:
>>>> I would have attributed the success of Ethernet to price!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> You've got the causality wrong -- it wasn't cheap, way back when.
>> 
>> I remember back in '93~94ish (I think) you could get a off brand 10BT
>> card for less than $100, as oppose to Token Ring which was $300~400.
>> I can't remember anything else that was cheaper back then.  If you go
>> back before that, I don't know.
> 
> Steve is talking mid-80s pricing, not mid-90s.  By '93 or so, the fact
> that Ethernet was becoming ubiquitous had already forced the price down.

Yup.  10 years earlier, a 3Com Ethernet card for a Vax cost about $1500, if memory serves.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb