Is 4.2BSD a failure?

[preece at ccvaxa.UUCP]

>				...  The most significant addition was the
>	support for networking, which may be the last gasp of the
>	networking-inside-the-operating-system approach.  (The state of the
>	art is to use intelligent networking cards; Excelan and Communications
>	Machinery make cards that provide IP/TCP services on an Ethernet;
>	these cost about the same as ordinary dumb Ethernet cards.)
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Leaving aside thoughts of how nice it would be to be able to afford to
replace all our equipment with state of the art boards, how about those of
us with machines other than Vaxen?  Curiously enough, the board manufacturers
don't hit the street with boards for every machine all at the same time.
The Berkeley networking code allows access to generic sorts of ethernet
controllers which may be easier to put together for another machine.
The next generation will have intelligent components, but for now it's
nice that all our little machines (and our big ones) have been able to
talk to each other through the Berkeley code.

scott preece
ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece