4 Oct
2018
4 Oct
'18
10:25 a.m.
On 10/04/2018 11:07 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
The Ethernet I and II standards are available from
Bitsavers:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/ethernet/
Cool.
From the preface of _The Ethernet_ Version 2.0:
Version 2.0 of the
Ethernet specification reflects the experience of the three corporations
in designing equipment to the Version 1.0 specification. Version 2.0
includes network management functions and better defines the details
of the physical channel signalling.
Okay. Intriguing.
Version 2.0 is upward compatible with Version 1.0.
Equipment designed
to the two specifications is interoperable.
My brain is having some trouble unpacking and understanding "upward
compatible". - I always think that it should be "new version is
/downward/ compatible with the old version" or "the old version is
/upward/ compatible with the new version".
It's also stumbling on "the two specifications is interoperable". Is
that "the (version) two specification is interoperable (with the version
one specification)" or "the two specification(s) /are/ interoperable"?
This might not make much difference. But my brain trips on are they
truly 100% interoperable (as in extra fields in version 2 that version 1
ignores) or is it a case of version 1 only understand version 1 and
version 2 is able to pretend to be version 1 when talking to version 1?
Sort of like a crude diagram:
v1 <--->| v2
v1 |<--->| v2
v1 |<---> v2
Which of the three is it?
I'll have to check out the documentation on Bitsavers. Thank you for
the link.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die