Serial Ethernet is not CPnet.? ?Nor was it Ethernet as we know it since about
1987 or later.
However I've worked with networking at the lower speed serial level?
with collision detect and its fairly simple hardware but lots of software
most of that software are the media and phyical and logical levels.
At its peak I ahd three system and a print server linked using a 38Kbaud net.
Systems could boot (one was diskless), copy, print (spool a file to the printerver)
and any other task that connectivity makes possible.? Mail was doable but at
the time I didn't have a arpanet bridge so no one to send it to.? Later it had a?
mod to the print sever that would dial up (at 1200 baud) and copy a message
to a BBS for forwarding or to Compuserve (about 1$ to sens a message all
connect time).
Networking as we know it flat out didn't exist until the mid 80s and even then
it was mostly inter-company.? DEC had the largest network in 1983, almost
150 nodes (basically a computer system) with anywhere from a few to several
hundred users.? By 1990, then were pushing the address space (64 major
zones and 1024 addresses in each as in 57.106 my system a microVAX-II
called ViDSYS::) total users about 120,000 likely more and 631,023
addressed nodes.
Generally networking changed a lot from late 70s to 1990 as did
networking speeds.? ?Links back 1983 could easily be a 1200baud modem
(using DDCMP protocal) to a 19200 baud synchronous modem to the next
building. and protocals were DECnet phase II (manual routing )? and III
(automatic routing).
Most of all this was covers back in the 90s on alt.sys.cpm and comp.sys.cpm
(yes the old bitnet days).? ? It never advanced much from then as everyone
tried to apply PC biased networking models or TCIP when UUCP was likely
a better fit.??
Allison
