what about 48 bits?

Tue Apr 6 21:23:41 UTC 2010

> From: Steven Bellovin <smb at cs.columbia.edu>
> Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 13:51:23 -0400
> Cc: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
>
> 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!
> >>>>=20
> >>>>=20
> >>> You've got the causality wrong -- it wasn't cheap, way back when.
> >>=20
> >> 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.
> >=20
> > 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.

That ball-park anyway -- ethernet for VMEbus or VERSAbus was in the same price
range.

Just a _few_ years later, ARCnet was one of several signficantly less expensive
alternatives for limited-size (both in number of hosts, and distance) LANS.