15 Jun
2005
15 Jun
'05
12:38 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Stan Barr wrote:
I also ran KA9Q tcp/ip over packet radio on a 386 with
MSDOS for quite a
while (and I think I've still got the disks somewhere), does that count
as "online"?
Damn right it does! We (the little garden) ran a whole internet on
40 MHz 386 boxes with KA9Q as router for four member/customers
(four serial cards and four modems, with ethernet to a 3COM
Brouter or in some cases another KA9Q box as uplink). Around
1992. Real TCP/IP and minimal routing, plus local (keyboard/CRT)
support for client and servers. Doesn't get more real than that!
These were in 100% uptime service too, not hobbiest
experimentation. Reliability was OK, not acceptable by today's
standards but considering each cost 0.3 X of a commercial router,
we were not complaining. Uptime was fair, and quickly improving
when we got actual money and bought Livingstons.
Phil Karn deserves a lot of credit for that great software.