Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 3/23/84; site cbosgd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!cbosgd!mark From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) Newsgroups: net.lan Subject: Re: IP variants Message-ID: <397@cbosgd.UUCP> Date: Fri, 5-Oct-84 14:35:55 EDT Article-I.D.: cbosgd.397 Posted: Fri Oct 5 14:35:55 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 05:31:51 EDT References:Reply-To: mark@cbpavo.UUCP (Mark Horton) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus Lines: 23 My understanding of the situation (containing mostly information from the DARPA side of the fence) is that the ISO IP (I sure hope they change the acronym, we're already getting confused) was not intended to be compatible with the DARPA IP. Much of the functionality was copied in an attempt to get DOD to conform to the upcoming ISO standard. However, this is largely a political game, and the last I heard there was no real intent on the part of DARPA to switch over to the ISO protocols. It is possible this will change when ISO finally gets its protocols documented. My own personal opinion is that ISO will be out too late. The virtual terminal protocol (the rest of us call this remote login) won't even be in draft form until 1986, and you can't have a usable network without remote login. (I don't consider UUCP exactly a usable network either.) It could easily be 1988 or later by the time the VT protocol is approved and vendor implementations start to appear. By that time, TCP/IP will have gathered so much momentum it will be impossible to stop it. And network compatibility being what it is, there will be too many existing TCP/IP networks out there to attempt to convert them or gateway between them with any high level of functionality. I suspect that ISO will catch on primarily outside the USA, and within the USA will only catch on to the extent that X.25 has (although it will have a fight to convert the X.25 networks over, so it may not do even that well.)