argh was Re: FDDI

On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Dave McGuire wrote: I agree; Ethernet is all well and good (cheap, etc) - but I doubt that too many people would call it "elegant". Now FDDI (and other token-based protocols) - I would call elegant. Especially when you want to do any kind of worst-case analysis for real time or other sensitive applications. The ethernet story is amusing. Here's a protocol (based on ALOHA, which actually makes sense) that was initially bus-based that has since become more-or-less point-to-point, at MUCH higher speeds, and yet the underlying principles have never changed. So the whole point of ethernet has basically been nill'ed out by going to entirely switched networks. There comes a point to say "okay, time for something NEW". Again, not that ethernet isn't great - it works all over the place. But MAN - I am jealous of your 30-node FDDI network. Sweet. - Dan Dan Linder / dlinder @ uiuc.edu Graduate Student, College of Engineering, Dept. of Computer Science - Dept. of Computer Science Teaching Assistant - DoRES Computer Accessibility Researcher