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From: backman@interlan.UUCP (Larry Backman)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: TCP maximum segment size determination
Message-ID: <514@interlan.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 08:09:05 EST
Article-I.D.: interlan.514
Posted: Wed Nov 25 08:09:05 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 01:06:11 EST
References: <283116.871110.JBVB@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> <3370@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: backman@interlan.UUCP (Larry Backman)
Organization: MICOM-Interlan, Boxborough, MA (1-800-LAN-TALK)
Lines: 24

>It's hard to believe that in this age of utterly cheap dense RAM,
>otherwise sane people are proposing inserting artificial delays between
>Ethernet packets because a lowball vendor wouldn't put, say, TWO
>buffers on their card!
>
>[I admit I'm prejudiced, since I worked on Suns, which currently seem
>to have the highest Ethernet thruput, but they were built out of
>standard Ethernet chips and DRAMs available to everyone.  You too can
>handle infinite back to back packets, if you just design with that in
>mind as Sun did.]
>

	But whhhat about all those old, old Suns, the ones without back to
	back capacity.  What about the tens of thousands of NI5010's or
	3C501's.  People bought them, have them, are working with them
	daily even though no double buffering is available.  Its not just
	a querstion of being a lowball vendor,  reality is the fact that
	old outmode hardware is out there and used!  Software must be
	cognizent that it will not always run in ideal situations.  In
	fact, I define good softwarre as that which can perform adaquately
	under less than ideal environmental situations.

						Larry Backman
						Micom - Interlan