🚀 go-pugleaf

Glen:

[ Glen Marianko comments that AppleTalk's dynamic router discovery
method leads to inefficient routing. ]

Let's not (once again) bash AppleTalk for not being something it
wasn't intended to be, and let's not forget you don't get something
for nothing.

I'll bet you probably didn't notice anything unusual with this net
performance-wise until you put your Lanalyzer on the Ethernet.  Any
large packet can be sent to the wrong Kbox and resent on the Ethernet
in far less time than it takes to transmit it on the LocalTalk, so
this "inefficiency" is trivial from the client Mac's point of view.
Assuming your Ethernet isn't overloaded already, it's not really a
problem there, either.  An older Kbox may be a bottleneck, but then it
wasn't designed to support high-performance file service, either.

What you may have noticed is that when you set up this network you
didn't have to configure *anything* having to do with router
addresses, default routes, etc.  The dynamic protocol that bothers you
is what makes that possible.  The philosophy is that the client
station, which may be a 128K Mac, shouldn't have to know anything
except the address of *some* router, not necessarily the "best" one.
The router, being smarter, will worry about routing.  If a router
fails, the client will find out about another working one promptly,
and use it.

I consider the time I spend explaining to neophyte network
administrators about default IP router addresses, and fixing
misconfigured machines, to be the real "inefficiency".  I hope
AppleTalk 2 doesn't lose too much ease of use in its pursuit of
performance. 

 - RL "Bob" Morgan
   Networking Systems
   Stanford