From: David Griffith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 9:10 PM
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Rich Alderson wrote:
>>>>> In that case, unless Peter or
someone else has done the work
>>>>> to make the Toad-1 speak DECnet, no one's Toad-1, Peter's or
>>>>> any other, will ever be on HECNET. The management at XKL
>>>>> absolutely forbade the software people to work on DECnet, for
>>>>> reasons obvious to anyone knowing the company history.
>>>> Can those of us who don't know
ask?
>>> Indeed. Inquiring minds want to know.
>>> (I want to know!)
>> The founders of XKL came from Cisco, I would
assume this has
>> something to do with it.
> The founders of XKL are *the founders* Of
'cisco Systems (as it was
> originally spelt). The original 'cisco business plan was to build a
> PDP-10 clone, codenamed "TOAD" (for "Ten On A Desk"); the router
thing
> was a small sideline that provided a positive cash flow. The VC Board
> of Directors changed the company's focus a bit. The founders left.
> XKL is entirely privately held.
Is there more? I don't see why that would have
put them off doing DECnet.
Actually, I was addressing Zane's comment that they "came from Cisco".
Ok.
DECnet was, at the time, a proprietary protocol suite, available only for
computers from Digital Equipment Corporation. Other companies who wished
to develop in that arena had to pay high licensing fees.
The founders of Cisco were important advocates of the open nature of TCP/IP.
They predicted, correctly, that proprietary architectures like DECnet, SNA &
LU.6, and the like, would go by the boards, and saw no reason to expend
limited resources on them.