🚀 go-pugleaf

<HS> Date: 31 Aug 87 19:09:50 GMT
<HS> From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu  (Henry Spencer)
<HS> To: protocols@RUTGERS.EDU

> The entire globe needs yet anotehr new protocol like it needs 5 billion
> new holes, one each in the heads of the earth's 5 billion people.  

<HS> Interesting that you should say this in the context of an article that
<HS> basically says "run OSI".  Ever heard of TCP/IP?  :-)

IP is packet switching, which is NOT the best way to run a network, it
has a whole host of problems due to lack of flow control on per-hop
basis, which apparently CANNOT be solved since Arpa-Internet is
currently coming up with more and more wild ideas to try to circumvent
the problems by hackery (source quench for example).

I still believe packet-linking, not packet-switching, is the best way
to go. Would anybody like me to write an essay describing the method
and arguing on its behalf? Can anyone argue in favor of packet
switching as opposed to packet linking? (Packet-linking is
error-protected blocks of data sent just on a single hop, and
immediately dis-assembled before incorporation into error-protected
block for next hop, which means a single block can contain data from
more than one logical stream that will go different ways at the next
hop, which means it's efficient to have single characters of data
passed at a time on a stream because only a fraction of a block is
used, thus the overhead of error-protection and framing is distributed
over multiple streams instead of applied to each stream. Each hop has
flow control, which includes buffering limits in the receiving node,
and local i.e. hop acknowledgements. Lost packets cause resend on one
hop rather than across an entire net, and are therefore much more
prompt. Constipation at any node causes backup along that route, but
doesn't affect any other routes except insofar as buffer space is
globally allocated in each node, and constipation never causes packets
to actually get lost.)

Does anybody know of any international standard protocol, proposed or
actually in effect as a legal standard, which is packet-linking rather
than packet-switching? If not, PCNET or other packet-linking protocol
needs to be developed to the point where it can be proposed as an
international standard which is an alternative to TCP/IP and current
ISO protocols.


<JAM> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 87 12:14:29 EDT
<JAM> From: jcm@ORNL-MSR.ARPA (James A. Mullens)
<JAM> To: pcnet@ai.ai.mit.edu
<JAM> Subject: Why PCNet?

> The entire globe needs yet anotehr new protocol like it needs 5 billion
> new holes, one each in the heads of the earth's 5 billion people.  

<JAM> (In an attempt to be more specific and to learn somthing myself)
<JAM> Why choose the unfinished PCNet over the existing Fido Net?

Could somebody email me the protocol specs for Fido Net so I could
study them and comment on their suitability?