What to preserve from the pre-IP era

I don't know how universally true this is, but, for the devices I know, the hardware doesn't speak IP or not speak IP; it's the software on it that controls that. So are you thinking, here, of devices as including the software, or as including the manufacturer's usual software, or what? As a simple example, a VAX with VMS didn't speak IP (not without third-party addons, at least not until comparatively late VMS) - but it is not fair to say that a VAX, per se, doesn't speak IP; put 4.3 on it and it speaks IP just fine. So I guess what I'm wondering is, where on this spectrum you're speaking from. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B