Why did OSI fail compared with TCP-IP?

Rudvar Alswill

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May 1, 2002, 3:02:00 PM5/1/02

to

OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
twenty years, it failed completely.
It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
that amount of money.
How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
fail in such a undignified way.

--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Lew Pitcher

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May 1, 2002, 3:23:50 PM5/1/02

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On Wed, 1 May 2002 19:02:00 +0000 (UTC), "Rudvar Alswill"
<rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
>for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
>twenty years, it failed completely.
>It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
>totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
>that amount of money.
>How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
>fail in such a undignified way.

Well, this question has been discussed to death.

My take on it: a committee of one can move faster than a committee of 1
thousand, and systems designed by committee tend to either be overweight or
overkill for the problem at hand.

My guess is that OSI didn't catch on because it was large,
over-encompassing, and it took to long to realize, while TCP/IP was small,
addressed the problem at hand, and was developed and released in a short
amount of time.

Lew Pitcher, Information Technology Consultant, Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group
(Lew_P...@td.com)

(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)

Pete Fenelon

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May 1, 2002, 3:50:47 PM5/1/02

to

In comp.arch Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.
> It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> that amount of money.
> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.

The protocols were designed by people who would never have to implement
them themselves; they give every sign of having been written by telco
people to make computer networking look as much like the phone system
(circuit-switching etc) as possible rather than by computer people, the
standards were unreadable and the development tools that did become
available were clunky in the extreme...

TCP/IP won by stealth :) It was out there (well, ok; it evolved from the
ARPANET protocols). It was open (in the sense that anyone who wanted to
suggest a change could suggest it -- no huge standards bodies involved),
flexible, scaleable (within reason, at the time), and easy to work with
on the (relatively) small machines of the time.

The UK ran hideous OSI-based protocols on its academic network until
the early 90s; then started to tunnel IP over them. Within *days* of
this, the vast majority of the traffic was IP-over-nasty. Took a while
for officialdom to cotton on and actually switch the network over. :)

A couple of quotes from the late 80s that may amuse you:

"OSI: Handling today's loads sometime;
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's load today" -- Henry Spencer, I think.

"If the OSI people are emailing one another, chances are it's over
TCP/IP" -- Ian Batten, I think?

"X.500 - the best advertisement for A4-sized business cards" - can't
remember where that came from, I'm afraid.

pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "Irk the purists, irk the purists, it's a right good laugh."

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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May 1, 2002, 4:19:17 PM5/1/02

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"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.
> It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> that amount of money.
> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.

1) OSI was strongly oriented towards the telco copper wire
point-to-point problems of the 70s & earlier, like high error rates
and little or no FEC technology. it was also pre-LAN

2) TCP/IP was a working implementation ... where OSI tended to be a
lot of specification independent of practical implementation ... IETF
at least required two operational, interoperable implementations prior
to advancement to RFC.

3) TCP/IP underwent major evolution with the 1/1/83 cut-over from the
strongly host-to-host orientation into "internet" (aka IP part of
tcp/ip).

in the late '80s at one point in X3S3.3 (ansi standards for equivalent
to OSI level 3 & 4) ... work on high speed protocol (HSP) effort was
fealt to be very dubious because progression to ISO level supposedly
required conformance with seperation of level 3 & level 4
operations. HSP would have collapsed portions of level 3 & 4 into
single level. The ISO & ANSI OSI-related groups were already quite
skizo over this requirement since IEEE 803 had already collapsed OSI
level 1, level 2, and parts of level 3 into single layer (and there
was no obvious easy way of declaring LANs invalid and having them all
destroyed). HSP would have filled between the level 4 interface to
IEEE 803 (aka all of OSI level 4 and all of OSI level 3 not already
occupied by IEEE 803).

in that sense the organizational activities around the "pure,
original, OSI architecture" wasn't very agile at adapting to changing
technology. There were lots of organizational mandates about meeting
pure architecture specification ... but not a whole lot of attention
to practicallities of the real market and changing technology.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Toon Moene

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May 1, 2002, 4:23:23 PM5/1/02

to

Rudvar Alswill wrote:

> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.
> It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> that amount of money.
> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.

Read Brooks's "The Mythical Man Month", and pay attention to the "second
system" effect.

Been there, didn't get it - certainly no T-shirt.

--
Toon Moene - mailto:to...@moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Maintainer, GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
Join GNU Fortran 95: http://g95.sourceforge.net/ (under construction)

Bill Todd

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May 1, 2002, 4:33:47 PM5/1/02

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"Pete Fenelon" <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote in message
news:ud0honi...@corp.supernews.com...

> In comp.arch Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> > for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> > twenty years, it failed completely.
> > It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> > totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> > that amount of money.
> > How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> > fail in such a undignified way.
>
> The protocols were designed by people who would never have to implement
> them themselves; they give every sign of having been written by telco
> people to make computer networking look as much like the phone system
> (circuit-switching etc) as possible rather than by computer people, the
> standards were unreadable and the development tools that did become
> available were clunky in the extreme...
>
> TCP/IP won by stealth :) It was out there (well, ok; it evolved from the
> ARPANET protocols). It was open (in the sense that anyone who wanted to
> suggest a change could suggest it -- no huge standards bodies involved),
> flexible, scaleable (within reason, at the time), and easy to work with
> on the (relatively) small machines of the time.

My impression is that DECnet might have been at least equally able to win by
virtue of existing (and supporting nearly anything-to-anything connectivity:
it was commonly used 20+ years ago in IBM environments to connect systems
that could not otherwise communicate effectively), save that it was a
proprietary mechanism - and God forbid that a company be given some kind of
advantage, regardless of the mechanism's merit. While I make no claim to
much knowledge in this area, I've often heard people in a position to make
such claims assert that DECnet solved several problems that IPV6 is still
struggling with and that IPV4 never addressed.

DEC unfortunately stuck with its commitment to support the OSI modifications
to DECnet until it became unmistakably obvious that the rest of the world
(including the U. S. government) had reneged on its commitments to use them.

- bill

David Ross

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May 1, 2002, 5:19:25 PM5/1/02

to

> in that sense the organizational activities around the "pure,
> original, OSI architecture" wasn't very agile at adapting to changing
> technology. There were lots of organizational mandates about meeting
> pure architecture specification ... but not a whole lot of attention
> to practicallities of the real market and changing technology.

Yep. I remember those days of controllers that implemented some of the
OSI standards costing more than the computers they went into. Mainly
due to the memory required to have all the separate chunks of code
that implemented the multiple levels in the controller. And bring your
option lists and programming manual because it wasn't plug a play.

Maynard Handley

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May 1, 2002, 5:39:36 PM5/1/02

to

In article <ud0honi...@corp.supernews.com>, Pete Fenelon
<pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:

> In comp.arch Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> > for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> > twenty years, it failed completely.
> > It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> > totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> > that amount of money.
> > How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> > fail in such a undignified way.
>
> The protocols were designed by people who would never have to implement
> them themselves; they give every sign of having been written by telco
> people to make computer networking look as much like the phone system
> (circuit-switching etc) as possible rather than by computer people, the
> standards were unreadable and the development tools that did become
> available were clunky in the extreme...
>
> TCP/IP won by stealth :) It was out there (well, ok; it evolved from the
> ARPANET protocols). It was open (in the sense that anyone who wanted to
> suggest a change could suggest it -- no huge standards bodies involved),
> flexible, scaleable (within reason, at the time), and easy to work with
> on the (relatively) small machines of the time.

Of course no-one ever learns from experience.
The latest debacle of this class is BlueTooth. Three years late and way
more expensive than promised, and it's still not clear that there is any
content whatever to the claims of super-duper magically self-organizing
networks.

Maynard

Del Cecchi

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May 1, 2002, 5:21:39 PM5/1/02

to

In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

because they weren't crossposting trollers like you?
--

Del Cecchi
cec...@us.ibm.com
Personal Opinions Only

Peter da Silva

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May 1, 2002, 6:08:08 PM5/1/02

to

In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.

I think "failed completely" is too strong. Many ISO defined standards
and techniques are in use. But, yes, it didn't meet with the success they
hoped for.

> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.

I would recommend reading Fred Brooks "The Mythical Man Month", as well as
a document at http://www.naggum.no/worse-is-better.html that takes a rather
more negative view than necessary of the whole issue.

The bottom line is that any successful scheme has to include a way to
get from where people are now to where you want them to be, and it seems
that only people who are trying to actually get from here to there as
they're designing things seem to bother with making it easy to do it.

--
I've seen things you people can't imagine. Chimneysweeps on fire over the roofs
of London. I've watched kite-strings glitter in the sun at Hyde Park Gate. All
these things will be lost in time, like chalk-paintings in the rain. `-_-'
Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U`

David Rubie

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May 1, 2002, 9:18:58 PM5/1/02

to

In the late 1980's, early 1990's, Australian government departments were
still
specifying OSI as an alternate (and sometimes required) protocol
for network replacement bids.

At the time, though, many of these places had enormous proprietary
networks based on the vendor of their mainframe. TCP/IP was still not
a very common inter-network protocol back then in that environment.

I remember having to configure a PC with an OSI, XNS and TCP/IP stack
(using MS-DOS 3.3) and barely having enough "low" memory left
to run anything useful at all. I did finally get Windows 3.0 to
start up on the bugger, but only after having to fiddle around with
one of those dodgy EMS memory utilities that stuff bits of drivers
into "unused" space. It still gives me the horrors.

My personal opinion on why it failed was that there simply wasn't
enough equipment available that had a working implementation. The
odd 3Com router or whatever could do it, you could buy a network
stack for your PC, but the mini/mainframe vendors usually couldn't
use the protocol for anything apporaching usefulness (i.e. lack
of terminal services, lack of file sharing or database access).

TCP/IP sort of rode in on the back of Unix servers in that
environment (which were randomly scattered around, regardless of
the departments minicomputer vendor) and eventually drove out
all the proprietary terminal access type network protocols. I
wasn't around long enough to see OSI get dropped as a requirement,
I assume it happened fairly soon after I left Canberra.

dave.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
David Rubie
Disclaimer: This message is not financial advice.
This message is not the opinion of Macquarie Bank Ltd.

Alan Barclay

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May 1, 2002, 9:36:13 PM5/1/02

to

In article <3CD05BBF...@davidrossconsultant.com>,

The reason they were so complex was because of the typical committee
problem. One member wants X, another member wants Y, they're incompatable
so what happens? The comittee approves both, making them optional.
That makes the implementation almost impossible.

David H. Lipman

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May 1, 2002, 10:08:40 PM5/1/02

to

Do you remember GOSIP ?

Nobody wanted to "reinvent the wheel" after TCP/IP became so widely
proliferated.
{ GOSIP - Gov't. Open Systems Internet Protocol }

"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org...

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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May 1, 2002, 11:40:41 PM5/1/02

to

"David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> writes:
> Do you remember GOSIP ?
>
> Nobody wanted to "reinvent the wheel" after TCP/IP became so widely
> proliferated.
> { GOSIP - Gov't. Open Systems Internet Protocol }

post containing some gosip extracts and document refs:

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#70 When the Internet went private

a couple misc. files tripped across:
gosip-v2.txt ... also gosip-v2.ps ... 10/90
gosip-order-info.txt 9/91
vendors-guide.doc 8/90

RFCs mentioning GOSIP ... go to
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

& click on "Term (term->RFC#)"
then click on "GOSIP" in the Acronym fastpath
which gives:

Government OSI Profile (GOSIP)
see also Open Systems Interconnection
2441 1632 1629 1237 1169 1039

clicking on the actual RFC number, will bring up the RFC summary in
the bottom frame. clicking on the ".txt=nnnnn" field in the summary will
retrieve that specific RFC. misc. summaries from above:

1039
DoD statement on Open Systems Interconnection protocols, Latham D.,
1988/01/01 (3pp) (.txt=6024) (Obsoletes 945)

1169
Explaining the Role of GOSIP, Cerf V., Mills K., 1990/08/09 (15pp)
(.txt=29413)

some of the previously refs mentioning gosip:

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#114 What is the use of OSI Reference Model?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#115 What is the use of OSI Reference Model?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#0 "Mainframe" Usage

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#59 7 layers to a program
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#79 "Database" term ok for plain files?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#16 The author Ronda Hauben fights for our freedom.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#43 Al Gore: Inventing the Internet...

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#63 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#17 Pre ARPAnet email?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#32 Blame it all on Microsoft

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#5 YKYGOW...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#6 YKYGOW...

ta...@dw.esands.com

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May 2, 2002, 4:07:42 AM5/2/02

to

In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
Rudvar Alswill wrote:

> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.

IMO OSI flopped because:

1. It defied comprehension, it arrived late, and the passing
of time rendered it irrelevant. A classic committe opus
magnum.

2. The US Govt kindly picked up the bill/cheque/tab for TCP/IP
which did the job. Why would anyone bother with OSI?

> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.
>

That's what IT people do. :)

Pete Fenelon

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May 2, 2002, 7:16:40 AM5/2/02

to

In comp.arch Bill Todd <bill...@metrocast.net> wrote:
>
> My impression is that DECnet might have been at least equally able to win by

The problem with DECnet is the first three letters -- it was implicitly
proprietary. Some of DEC's networking technology was fantastic
(particularly LAT - much nicer than telnet over TCP/IP for interactive
sessions, and of course clustering over DECnet "just worked"...).
Any standard that was going to "take over the world" had to be
non-proprietary, though...

Peter Ibbotson

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May 2, 2002, 7:39:46 AM5/2/02

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"Alan Barclay" <gor...@elaine.furryape.com> wrote in message
news:10203033...@elaine.furryape.com...

My favorite analogy for this is:
The standard specifies driving down the middle of the road, with options for
left or right.

--
Work pet...@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply
Home pe...@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX

Chris Morgan

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May 2, 2002, 7:58:20 AM5/2/02

to

pe...@abbnm.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

> I think "failed completely" is too strong. Many ISO defined standards
> and techniques are in use. But, yes, it didn't meet with the success they
> hoped for.

The obvious concrete example being LDAP, which is a subset of
X.something (500?)

--
Chris Morgan <cm at mihalis.net> http://www.mihalis.net
Temp sig. - Enquire within

Enrico Badella

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May 2, 2002, 8:23:36 AM5/2/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>

[snip]

> 2) TCP/IP was a working implementation ... where OSI tended to be a
> lot of specification independent of practical implementation ... IETF
> at least required two operational, interoperable implementations prior
> to advancement to RFC.

RFCs were/are free while all OSI docs costs real money. Could something like
KA9Q be done with OSI docs?? I would say no

e.

========================================================================
Enrico Badella email: enrico....@softstar.it
Soft*Star srl e...@vax.cnuce.cnr.it
InterNetworking Specialists tel: +39-011-746092
Via Camburzano 9 fax: +39-011-746487
10143 Torino, Italy

Wanted, for hobbyist use, any type of PDP and microVAX hardware,software,
manuals,schematics,etc. and DEC-10 docs or manuals
==========================================================================

Villy Kruse

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May 2, 2002, 9:08:11 AM5/2/02

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On 02 May 2002 14:01:23 +0200,
Andi Kleen <fre...@alancoxonachip.com> wrote:

>Chris Morgan <c...@mihalis.net> writes:
>
>> pe...@abbnm.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>
>> > I think "failed completely" is too strong. Many ISO defined standards
>> > and techniques are in use. But, yes, it didn't meet with the success they
>> > hoped for.
>>
>> The obvious concrete example being LDAP, which is a subset of
>> X.something (500?)
>

>Another one is HDLC.
>

Which predates any of this and is a variant of SDLC. Either HDLC or SDLC,
don't remember which, was used as basis for IBM's SNA network protocol.

Villy

Jason Ozolins

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May 2, 2002, 9:07:41 AM5/2/02

to

David Rubie wrote:
> In the late 1980's, early 1990's, Australian government departments were
> still
> specifying OSI as an alternate (and sometimes required) protocol
> for network replacement bids.

At the small department I worked in during 1993, we spent hours working
out how to justify acquiring a Netware network with TCP/IP connection to
an SVR4 database box instead of an expensive and slow OSI-based
solution. I'm glad that OSI died...

[...]

> My personal opinion on why it failed was that there simply wasn't
> enough equipment available that had a working implementation. The
> odd 3Com router or whatever could do it, you could buy a network
> stack for your PC, but the mini/mainframe vendors usually couldn't
> use the protocol for anything apporaching usefulness (i.e. lack
> of terminal services, lack of file sharing or database access).

And don't forget, what was implemented tended to perform like slugs on
drugs. In 1993 I watched a file transfer over Ethernet between a
Windows 3.1 box running ICL's beautiful* office automation suite and an
ICL SPARC SVR4 box running OSI protocols go about the same speed as my
9600 baud modem at home could manage. At the time, my thought was "if
this is the future, then the future will be very very slow".

*character mode interface with a window border around it, mmmmmmm!

> TCP/IP sort of rode in on the back of Unix servers in that
> environment (which were randomly scattered around, regardless of
> the departments minicomputer vendor) and eventually drove out
> all the proprietary terminal access type network protocols. I
> wasn't around long enough to see OSI get dropped as a requirement,
> I assume it happened fairly soon after I left Canberra.

Don't bet on it - up until at least last year you would occasionally see
evidence of X.400 gateways in mail messages from public servants.
Apparently the Department of Finance held onto OSI protocols for ages
too, which meant that every other department had to have some OSI gear
just to transfer payroll data to/from Finance using FTAM. :-(

Bob Willard

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May 2, 2002, 9:16:46 AM5/2/02

to

Pete Fenelon wrote:
>
> Any standard that was going to "take over the world" had to be
> non-proprietary, though...

Really? Is the success of WinDuhs due to its robustness, or what?
--
Cheers, Bob

Tony Finch

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May 2, 2002, 9:44:06 AM5/2/02

to

Chris Morgan <c...@mihalis.net> wrote:
>
>The obvious concrete example being LDAP, which is a subset of
>X.something (500?)

And SNMP uses ASN.1 and SSL certificates are X.509.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
GERMAN BIGHT: EASTERLY OR SOUTHEASTERLY 3 OR 4 BECOMING CYCLONIC 5 OR 6.
THUNDERY RAIN. GOOD BECOMING MODERATE OR POOR.

Roy Omond

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May 2, 2002, 10:03:43 AM5/2/02

to

Pete Fenelon wrote:

> In comp.arch Bill Todd <bill...@metrocast.net> wrote:
> >
> > My impression is that DECnet might have been at least equally able to win by
>
> The problem with DECnet is the first three letters -- it was implicitly
> proprietary.

By your understanding. The specification for DECnet is, and always has
been, freely available with no restrictions. That's by my definition pretty
much the opposite of "proprietary". Maybe it should have been called
HEPnet or SPAN instead :-) Quite a few third-party implementations
of DECnet were made for various platforms, KInet and Thursby spring
to mind.

> Some of DEC's networking technology was fantastic
> (particularly LAT - much nicer than telnet over TCP/IP for interactive
> sessions, and of course clustering over DECnet "just worked"...).

Agreed about LAT; so much nicer than telnet.

Note, though, DECnet and clustering have nothing whatsoever to
do with each other.

> Any standard that was going to "take over the world" had to be
> non-proprietary, though...

Yeah, right ... tell that to Micros**t. They seem to have failed
to understand that.

Roy Omond
Blue Bubble Ltd.

Tony Finch

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May 2, 2002, 10:16:09 AM5/2/02

to

The non-proprietary nature of the hardware.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE: SOUTH OR SOUTHWEST 4 OR 5, OCCASIONALLY 6 IN
NORTH UTSIRE, VEERING NORTHWEST 3 OR 4. SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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May 2, 2002, 11:13:15 AM5/2/02

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Jason Ozolins <snor...@bigpond.com> writes:
> And don't forget, what was implemented tended to perform like slugs on
> drugs. In 1993 I watched a file transfer over Ethernet between a
> Windows 3.1 box running ICL's beautiful* office automation suite and
> an ICL SPARC SVR4 box running OSI protocols go about the same speed as
> my 9600 baud modem at home could manage. At the time, my thought was
> "if this is the future, then the future will be very very slow".

I believe that some organization in europe implemented the full
7-level OSI stack and when the thruput numbers were presented somebody
from one of the the ISO group said that OSI was supposed to be a
abstract model ... not a real specification.

David Ross

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May 2, 2002, 11:41:12 AM5/2/02

to

> >> > I think "failed completely" is too strong. Many ISO defined standards
> >> > and techniques are in use. But, yes, it didn't meet with the success they
> >> > hoped for.
> >>
> >> The obvious concrete example being LDAP, which is a subset of
> >> X.something (500?)
> >
> >Another one is HDLC.
> >
>
> Which predates any of this and is a variant of SDLC. Either HDLC or SDLC,
> don't remember which, was used as basis for IBM's SNA network protocol.

SDLC

It was a neat trick at the time. It was based on the high cost of long
distance lines and the low speed of those lines. I think the first
SDLC boxes went into service in the early or mid 70s. It broke the bit
stream down into bits and then grouped them into 6 bits chunks. Every
so often it would insert a string of 6 ones as a framing to make sure
everyone was in step. Real patterns of 6 ones were handled via an
escape sequence. All of this was optimized to make terminal sessions,
mainframe to mainframe, and RJE transmissions as efficient as
possible. Using EBCDIC (?) of course. At some point modem speed and
communications costs made this expensive encoding and decoding moot.
But it sure kept out the competition. Building a comm box to do this
way back then cost real bucks.

Del Cecchi

unread,

May 2, 2002, 11:45:48 AM5/2/02

to

In article <PHb*kk...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,

Intel processors are not proprietary?

Tony Finch

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May 2, 2002, 1:08:25 PM5/2/02

to

cec...@signa.rchland.ibm.com (Del Cecchi) wrote:
>
>Intel processors are not proprietary?

You can get compatible ones from AMD, or NEC if you go back to the 16
bit days. There are also multiple BIOS vendors and chipset vendors,
and the design specs are reasonably open.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE: SOUTHERLY OR VARIABLE 3 OR 4 OCCASIONALLY 5
IN NORTH UTSIRE, VEERING NORTHWESTERLY 3 OR 4. SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD
OCCASIONALLY POOR.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 2, 2002, 1:31:14 PM5/2/02

to

Chris Morgan <c...@mihalis.net> writes:
> The obvious concrete example being LDAP, which is a subset of
> X.something (500?)

as mentioned in another posting somebody at an ACM conference circa
1990 (SIGMOD?) ... x.500 was a bunch of networking types re-inventing
1960s database technology.

LDAP is much more of a networking protocol that accesses database
backends (you don't see many LDAPs using other than pre-existing DBMS
technology). It is also heavily influenced by IETF process ... aka

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

select ""Term (term->RFC#)" and then select "LDAP" from the Acronym fastpath,
i.e.:

ightweight directory access protocol (LDAP ) (LDAPv2) (LDAPv3 )
see also ITU directory service protocol , directory
3112 3088 3062 3060 3045 2927 2926 2891 2849 2830 2829 2820 2798 2739
2714 2713 2696 2657 2649 2596 2589 2587 2559 2307 2256 2255 2254 2253
2252 2251 2247 2164 1960 1959 1823 1798 1778 1777 1558 1487 1249

it is then possible to select on any of the RFC numbers to get a summary
of the specific RFC. In the RFC summary entry it is possible to select
on the ".txt=nnnn" field to retrieve the actual RFC ... aka

3088 E
OpenLDAP Root Service An experimental LDAP referral service, Zeilenga
K., 2001/04/16 (11pp) (.txt=19471)

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 2, 2002, 1:45:43 PM5/2/02

to

Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> writes:
> And SNMP uses ASN.1 and SSL certificates are X.509.

SSL certificates are sort-of X.509 ... and X.509 certificates are
specified as ASN.1 encoded, aka ASN.1 encoding is used for
transmission purposes. Once transmitted, to use the information, there
has to be ASN.1 decoding of the information. There is some move for
XML encoding of various things in place of ASN.1 encoding.

There are huge number of things that are ISO standards ... other than
OSI networking standards. Many such ISO standards are widely deployed
and succesful. Just because something is an ISO standard doesn't
automagically make it a failure and just because something is an IETF
standard doesn't automagically make it a success. However, IETF has
had something of a track record of requiring actual operational
implementations before moving things along the standards track, aka it
doesn't mean that the people in IETF are either smarter or dumber
... but there is something of a sanity check having real live
implementations.

A world-wide deployed network message protocol that is an ISO standard
is 8583 (neither TCP/IP nor OSI) ... all those ATM and point-of-sale
(debit & credit) boxes that you find all over the world (as well as
the backend bank-to-bank). Note, however it doesn't use ASN.1
encoding.

Chris Morgan

unread,

May 2, 2002, 1:54:27 PM5/2/02

to

Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> writes:

> cec...@signa.rchland.ibm.com (Del Cecchi) wrote:
> >
> >Intel processors are not proprietary?
>
> You can get compatible ones from AMD, or NEC if you go back to the 16
> bit days. There are also multiple BIOS vendors and chipset vendors,
> and the design specs are reasonably open.

AMD can do this due to cross-licensing of patents, and other
factors. IBM can also make some older Intel-designed chips. The best
test is probably to look at Itanic. Who else could make it, ignoring
for now whether anyone else would want to? I think the answer is :
nobody. It seems to be "now that we've outpaced all other chip
vendors, throw away the last vestiges of even appearing to be
non-proprietary". IMHO, of course.
--
Chris Morgan

"Not so bad offer to discuss about"

- Best recent email spam subject line

Paul Winalski

unread,

May 2, 2002, 4:37:15 PM5/2/02

to

On Wed, 1 May 2002 19:02:00 +0000 (UTC), "Rudvar Alswill"
<rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
>for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
>twenty years, it failed completely.

>It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
>totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
>that amount of money.

>How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
>fail in such a undignified way.

I'd say several reasons:

(1) You've heard the old joke: An elephant is a mouse designed by
committee. Design-by-committee is one of the worst ways to approach
a problem.

(2) Standards bodies such as OSI tend to be dominated by two
classes of participants: Those with a particular axe to grind (such
as the European PTTs, who were interested in making sure they
had to change their equipment and procedures as little as possible),
and ivory tower academics. Everyone else is generally too busy doing
produtive work to waste time on committees.

(3) A proposed standard put before a standards committee is kind of
like a new fire hydrant discovered for the first time by the local
pack of dogs. Everyone has to piss on it before they can accept it
as their own. So even if you start with a fairly clean, elegant
design, by the time you get buy-in from the whole committee the
thing's turned into a pile of crap.

OSI isn't the only standard that suffered from this syndrome, by the
way. For example, take a look at Fortran 90 sometime. Be sure to
bring a barf bag with you.

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame observed in one of his books that to
determine the collective IQ of a committee, you start at 100 and
subtract 5 points for every person on the committee. The phenomenon
of collective stupidity goes a long way to explain how otherwise
seemingly bright people can come up with these abominations of
standards.

In the case of OSI, I think it was mainly turf protection on the
part of the PTTs that resulted in the standard being excessively
complicated and hence expensive to implement.

Meanwhile, you had TCP/IP, which was a standard commissioned
by a single entity (the US DoD) from a single design firm (BBN), and
which was put in place on the ARPAnet (one of the largest networks
at the time) by fiat. TCP/IP's was insured when support for it got
bundled for free with UNIX. UNIX spread first among universities,
becaus AT&T practically gave it away in that marketplace, and
ARPAnet connectivity was important there, whereas OSI connectivity
was irrelevant to that community. So UNIX got a free implementation
of TCP/IP but not OSI. An ever-increasing market presence went
the rest of the way of pushing OSI into irrelevance.

----------
Remove 'Z' to reply by email.

Paul Winalski

unread,

May 2, 2002, 4:39:47 PM5/2/02

to

On Wed, 01 May 2002 20:33:47 GMT, "Bill Todd" <bill...@metrocast.net>
wrote:

>My impression is that DECnet might have been at least equally able to win by

>virtue of existing (and supporting nearly anything-to-anything connectivity:
>it was commonly used 20+ years ago in IBM environments to connect systems
>that could not otherwise communicate effectively), save that it was a
>proprietary mechanism - and God forbid that a company be given some kind of
>advantage, regardless of the mechanism's merit. While I make no claim to
>much knowledge in this area, I've often heard people in a position to make
>such claims assert that DECnet solved several problems that IPV6 is still
>struggling with and that IPV4 never addressed.

Had DEC released a platform-independent, free implementation of
DECnet, and/or encouraged its development and use on other vendors'
platforms, it might well have won. As it was, DEC didn't do much to
promote its use on other than DEC hardware.

Paul Winalski

unread,

May 2, 2002, 4:41:14 PM5/2/02

to

On 2 May 2002 15:45:48 GMT, cec...@signa.rchland.ibm.com (Del Cecchi)
wrote:

>Intel processors are not proprietary?

The vast majority of the x86 architecture isn't. Witness Cyrix and
AMD implementations of it.

Marco S Hyman

unread,

May 2, 2002, 4:20:55 PM5/2/02

to

gor...@elaine.furryape.com (Alan Barclay) writes:

> The reason they were so complex was because of the typical committee
> problem. One member wants X, another member wants Y, they're incompatable
> so what happens? The comittee approves both, making them optional.
> That makes the implementation almost impossible.

Oh, implementation was quite possible. It's interoperability that
suffered.

// marc

Marco S Hyman

unread,

May 2, 2002, 4:29:02 PM5/2/02

to

"David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> writes:

> { GOSIP - Gov't. Open Systems Internet Protocol }

Not "protocol", "profile". It was a functional profile of which of the
(some times incompatible) parts of OSI should be used for systems sold to
the US government. Exanple: OSI had two different (and incompatible)
network protocols, CONS and CLNS. GOSIP specified which one a conforming
implemention must use.

// marc

John R Levine

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May 2, 2002, 5:22:42 PM5/2/02

to

> I believe that some organization in europe implemented the full
> 7-level OSI stack and when the thruput numbers were presented
> somebody from one of the the ISO group said that OSI was supposed to
> be a abstract model ... not a real specification.

I heard that it was a difference in US and European mindset. The
Americans saw a seven-level spec, and presumed that it had to be
implemented as seven sets of coroutines because that's what the spec
said. The Europeans, who have centuries of experience having the spec
say one thing and reality another (e.g., the person you live with is
not the person you're married to, but you all go to church every week
anyway) knew better.

Apparently it's possible to implement parts of OSI like FTAM to be
reasonably efficient if you merge the levels that need merging, but by
the time people figured that out nobody cared.

We don't implement TCP/IP by levels either. I would be surprised if
any TCP implemention that people actually use would work on top of a
datagram layer other than IP without being completely rewritten. The
IP level has been known to become entwined with the data link level,
as in trailer encapsulation on Ethernet packets, a hack used to make
NFS faster on old Suns.

--
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869
jo...@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl,
Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 2, 2002, 5:51:46 PM5/2/02

to

Marco S Hyman <ma...@snafu.org> writes:
>> { GOSIP - Gov't. Open Systems Internet Protocol }
>
> Not "protocol", "profile". It was a functional profile of which of the
> (some times incompatible) parts of OSI should be used for systems sold to
> the US government. Exanple: OSI had two different (and incompatible)
> network protocols, CONS and CLNS. GOSIP specified which one a conforming
> implemention must use.
>
> // marc

and not internet ... but interconnection ... aka

U. S. Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP)
VERSION 2.0
October 1990

the whole thing about internet (aka IP) was the great 1/1/83
switch-over for arpanet ... prior to that it looked more like
traditional (homogeneous protocol) network. the 1/1/83 switch-over
introduced the concept of internet and gateways (between networks).

one of my claims regarding the internal corporate network being larger
than all of arpanet/internet from the beginning until some time around
'85 was that effectively the internal corporate network essentially
supported gateway function in every node from the beginning.

misc. internet posts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#internet
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindex.html#network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindx2.html#network

misc. osi, hsp, iso posts:
http://sss.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#xtphsp

David Rubie

unread,

May 2, 2002, 7:33:27 PM5/2/02

to

Jason Ozolins wrote:
>
[deleted]

> > I
> > wasn't around long enough to see OSI get dropped as a requirement,
> > I assume it happened fairly soon after I left Canberra.
>
> Don't bet on it - up until at least last year you would occasionally see
> evidence of X.400 gateways in mail messages from public servants.
> Apparently the Department of Finance held onto OSI protocols for ages
> too, which meant that every other department had to have some OSI gear
> just to transfer payroll data to/from Finance using FTAM. :-(

It does seem bizarre that the whole idea of adopting the protocols
(the buzz at that time was that OSI was going to be *everywhere*)
turned out so backwards.

We used to get a real giggle out of some of the request-for-tenders
that came out of various departments. Half of them were closely
worded so as to exclude just about every vendor except the
encumbent. The other half were so strictly "standards compliant"
that no vendor remotely had a chance of meeting the specifications.
Trying to explain this to a bunch of gung-ho sales guys who grew
up with the rapidly disappearing proprietary systems world was
lots of fun. They didn't care that the equipment/software didn't
meet the spec, they were so full of themselves that all they
thought they needed was a foot in the door and enough credit on
their Amex to booze up a few senior public servants.

Come to think of it, that strategy used to work...

dave.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
David Rubie
Disclaimer: This message is not financial advice.
This message is not the opinion of Macquarie Bank Ltd.

Tony Finch

unread,

May 2, 2002, 9:18:42 PM5/2/02

to

Andi Kleen <fre...@alancoxonachip.com> wrote:

>jo...@iecc.com (John R Levine) writes:
>
>> We don't implement TCP/IP by levels either. I would be surprised if
>> any TCP implemention that people actually use would work on top of a
>> datagram layer other than IP without being completely rewritten.
>

>A lot of TCPs these days to. They run on top of both IPv4 and IPv6.
>v4 and v6 are different enough that they need separate data link
>implementations.

Jeff Mogul's paper "rethinking the TCP Nagle algorithm" was surprising
to me (as someone familiar with BSD networking code) because of the
degree of layering violations that Digital Unix had compared to other
BSD code, such as the code in Stevens volume 2 and the modern BSDs.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

NORTHWEST FITZROY: NORTHERLY 4 OR 5, BACKING SOUTHERLY 3 OR 4. SHOWERS THEN
RAIN. GOOD BECOMING MODERATE.

Tony Finch

unread,

May 2, 2002, 9:25:52 PM5/2/02

to

pr...@ZAnkh-Morpork.mv.com (Paul Winalski) wrote:
>
>Meanwhile, you had TCP/IP, which was a standard commissioned
>by a single entity (the US DoD) from a single design firm (BBN), and
>which was put in place on the ARPAnet (one of the largest networks
>at the time) by fiat.

While the ARPANET was entirely a BBN thing, I don't think that that
is true for TCP/IP -- by the time it was being designed the ARPANET
community and the Network Working Group in particular included many more
people and organizations than just BBN.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

FORTIES: VARIABLE BECOMING NORTHWESTERLY 3 OR 4. MAINLY FAIR. MODERATE OR
GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR AT FIRST.

Ketil Malde

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May 3, 2002, 2:59:53 AM5/3/02

to

pr...@ZAnkh-Morpork.mv.com (Paul Winalski) writes:

> On Wed, 1 May 2002 19:02:00 +0000 (UTC), "Rudvar Alswill"
> <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>

> OSI isn't the only standard that suffered from [design by
> committee], by the way. For example, take a look at Fortran 90

> sometime. Be sure to bring a barf bag with you.

Trigraphs in C? A possibly apocryphal anecdote claims that nobody
really wanted or liked trigraphs, but that some members refused to
accept a standard without some provision for meagre character sets.
So we got a solution which fulfils the specifications, but nobody
likes or uses.

(I'm sure somebody here knows the *real* story :-)

> Scott Adams of Dilbert fame observed in one of his books that to
> determine the collective IQ of a committee,

You don't have to look to Adams; In "The fifth discipline", Peter
Senge considers a committee to effectively work at the lowest IQ of
the members, IIRC. Good book, by the way.

-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

Nick Maclaren

unread,

May 3, 2002, 3:16:32 AM5/3/02

to

In article <m3g01ac...@averell.firstfloor.org>,

Andi Kleen <fre...@alancoxonachip.com> wrote:
>jo...@iecc.com (John R Levine) writes:
>

>> We don't implement TCP/IP by levels either. I would be surprised if
>> any TCP implemention that people actually use would work on top of a
>> datagram layer other than IP without being completely rewritten. The
>> IP level has been known to become entwined with the data link level,
>> as in trailer encapsulation on Ethernet packets, a hack used to make
>> NFS faster on old Suns.
>

>A lot of TCPs these days to. They run on top of both IPv4 and IPv6.
>v4 and v6 are different enough that they need separate data link
>implementations.

Perhaps, but (a) they are conceptually VERY similar and (b) the
differences are almost entirely in the addressing and not the
transport.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email: nm...@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Craig Partridge

unread,

May 3, 2002, 8:31:56 AM5/3/02

to

Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> writes:

>>Meanwhile, you had TCP/IP, which was a standard commissioned
>>by a single entity (the US DoD) from a single design firm (BBN), and
>>which was put in place on the ARPAnet (one of the largest networks
>>at the time) by fiat.

>While the ARPANET was entirely a BBN thing, I don't think that that
>is true for TCP/IP -- by the time it was being designed the ARPANET
>community and the Network Working Group in particular included many more
>people and organizations than just BBN.

Quite right. Indeed, ARPANET was not entirely a BBN thing either (BBN
built the IMPs and ran the network, but the work of connecting a host
to an IMP was largely done by others)

Regarding TCP/IP -- there was a modest sized group of folks who designed
it. There were multiple implementation teams (including two for BSD UNIX).

Regarding why OSI failed -- I think there's no one reason. Among the
reasons are:

* Warring specifications: OSI had two incompatible network layer protocols
and four versions of one transport protocol. Some of the specifications
were quite good (in the mid-1980s, there's a good argument that CLNP
was probably a better protocol than IP -- it took a while for IP to
catchup). But the problem is that it was easy to implement OSI and not
interoperate with someone else.

* Failure to create a market: TCP/IP did just about everything right in
terms of creating a market. The community got product out, even when
the product wasn't quite ready for prime time. The price was right (often
free). Improvements came swiftly (advantages of free code and free
specifications).

OSI failed to create a market, and thus failed to evolve fast enough
to meet the needs of the market.

* The network effect: As the TCP/IP network kept growing, it became more
and more valuable until, at some point, the cost of going back to
a less-effective OSI network was just too painful...

Craig

Jan C. Vorbrüggen

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May 3, 2002, 9:07:47 AM5/3/02

to

> OSI isn't the only standard that suffered from this syndrome, by the
> way. For example, take a look at Fortran 90 sometime. Be sure to
> bring a barf bag with you.

Compared to what - C? C++? Bah, nonsense.

> Meanwhile, you had TCP/IP, which was a standard commissioned
> by a single entity (the US DoD) from a single design firm (BBN), and
> which was put in place on the ARPAnet (one of the largest networks
> at the time) by fiat.

Yeah, and then they had those interop get-togethers to work out the
differences in implementation resulting from non-existant or subject-
to-interpretation specifications. I still regularly see people describing
problems (especially with regard to performance) resulting from
implementations that don't work together properly (of course, in many cases
at least one of the parties was written by MS). Tell me more.

Jan

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 3, 2002, 9:20:46 AM5/3/02

to

"Ketil Malde" <ket...@ii.uib.no> writes:
> You don't have to look to Adams; In "The fifth discipline", Peter
> Senge considers a committee to effectively work at the lowest IQ of
> the members, IIRC. Good book, by the way.

different committees operate at different levels

sum(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)
sum(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)/n
min(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)
min(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)/n

i.e. a comittee can be less effective than any single member of the
comittee alone ... with large comittees tending to zero effectiveness.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 3, 2002, 1:54:55 PM5/3/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> sum(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)
> sum(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)/n
> min(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)
> min(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)/n
>
> i.e. a comittee can be less effective than any single member of the
> comittee alone ... with large comittees tending to zero effectiveness.

or taking a leaf out of management theory & span of control
(combinatorial interaction issue) ...

sum(IQ0, IQ1, ..., IQn)/n!

which also tends to zero for large n ...

it possibly is unrelated to the lowest IQ or even the inverse
... somebody once observed that effectiveness declined sharply as the
number of really bright (opinionated) people went up (something akin
to deadly-embrace scenario).

Kris

unread,

May 3, 2002, 7:00:26 PM5/3/02

to

cra...@world.std.com (Craig Partridge) wrote:

> catchup). But the problem is that it was easy to implement OSI and not
> interoperate with someone else.

There was an OSI interoperability technical subcomittee whose first
task was to define "interoperability". After a few minutes we came
up with "able to communicate - and do useful work".

Then the chairwoman told us that a committee elsewhere had failed to
achieve that definition in 18 months of deliberations.

However - we did spend a long time trying to find an alternative to
the phrase "third party vendor" to suit one representative.
--
"Every Solution breeds a new calamity"
<http://kris.users.netlink.co.uk/>
AntiSpam: for email - use Reply: field

Andrew Skretvedt

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May 3, 2002, 7:33:54 PM5/3/02

to

Hey, there is one good thing: virtually all networking protocols are based,
or can be shown to conform to the OSI 7-layer model. That method of
conceptualizing networking helps get our minds around the interoperation of
protocols immensely.

Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org...

> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> twenty years, it failed completely.
> It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> that amount of money.
> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> fail in such a undignified way.
>
>

> --
> Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 3, 2002, 8:22:54 PM5/3/02

to

Andi Kleen <fre...@alancoxonachip.com> writes:
> TCP/IP does not really conform to the OSI 7 layer model, although
> it is not too far off.

except for the whole IP (internet) layer ... which is non-existant in
the OSI model ... and would create a brand new 8th layer ... sort of
sitting somewhere between transport (layer 4) and network (layer 3).

the IP (internet) layer ... was the major thing in the 1/1/83 great
switch-over. the pre-IP, pre-1/1/83, NCP/IMP based infrastructure was
not too far off (from OSI model), being much more of a traditional,
homogeneous networking implementation. The 1/1/83 switch-over to an
internetworking implementation added something that was different with
the (IP) layer to inter-networking of networks (networks being a layer
3 concept, and inter-networking not having an OSI defintion).

The "inter-network" IP layer ... also including the concept of
(inter)-networking gateways. My claim previous claim was that the
internal corporate network effectively had gateway function support in
every node and was one of the reasons that the internal corporate
network was larger than the whole arpa/internet until sometime circa
1985. I claim that the introduction of the IP layer and
internetworking with gateways was one of the things that help promote
the take-off of the internet (in 1/1/83 switch-over) and for it to
surpose the internal network in size (there was a number of other
factors also).

Jason Ozolins

unread,

May 3, 2002, 10:00:43 PM5/3/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
> Jason Ozolins <snor...@bigpond.com> writes:
>
>>And don't forget, what was implemented tended to perform like slugs on
>>drugs. In 1993 I watched a file transfer over Ethernet between a
>>Windows 3.1 box running ICL's beautiful* office automation suite and
>>an ICL SPARC SVR4 box running OSI protocols go about the same speed as
>>my 9600 baud modem at home could manage. At the time, my thought was
>>"if this is the future, then the future will be very very slow".

>>
>
> I believe that some organization in europe implemented the full
> 7-level OSI stack and when the thruput numbers were presented somebody
> from one of the the ISO group said that OSI was supposed to be a
> abstract model ... not a real specification.

Bold assertion: All the big vendor OSI offerings were tweaked versions
of a reference implementation. The differing design goals between
reference and production code would explain the bloat and lack of
performance nicely, but leaves open the question of why OSI gear got a
reputation for not interoperating well.

Note: I'm sure that I'm wrong on this, but I'd like to hear which
vendors actually did produce high-performance OSI products; it would
also be grimly interesting to find out if any vendors spent lots of
money on doing their own implementations, and still ended up with
horrible performance. Getting people's backs up seems like one way of
finding this out... :-)

Terje Mathisen

unread,

May 6, 2002, 4:01:52 AM5/6/02

to

This has been a major source of intellectual challenges (and
work/income) for me for the last half a year or so:

Microsoft very deliberately breaks the TCPIP spec in interesting ways,
one of them being that they intentionally disregard the TCP_NODELAY flag
on socket open calls.

I.e. they don't trust applications to know best, and the end result is
that the deadlock between Nagle and Delayed Ack described in Mogul's
Nagle paper occurs far too often.

For a 122 MB sync operation (about 4500 documents) between a Notes
server (running on AIX) and a client (NT or W2K), the Nagle timeouts can
all by themselves increase the minimum sync time on a 100 Mbit/s network
from about 12-15 seconds to 15+ minutes. Ouch. :-(

Terje
--
- <Terje.M...@hda.hydro.com>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

A. G. McDowell

unread,

May 6, 2002, 8:07:03 AM5/6/02

to

In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> writes

>OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
>for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
>twenty years, it failed completely.
>It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
>totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
>that amount of money.
>How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
>fail in such a undignified way.
>
>

Much of OSI was funded from European sources. An important secondary
goal was to channel money to European industry, academic research, and
international cooperation. From this point of view, OSI was
outstandingly effective. Many companies were able to get European
funding for work they would have done anyway. Academics were funded to
write papers explaining why OSI was superior to TCP/IP. Both of these
parties were induced to set up large committees and stage international
meetings. Viewed in isolation, each of these participants was
successful. For example, since the EEC is funded by n (>= 9) countries,
it is entirely rational for a single country to persuade it to fund work
which returns anything over 1/n of the money invested, as long as it
gets that >= 1/n and the costs are equally split. If fostering European
cooperation and integration is an end in itself, a total loss is
entirely acceptable (the fact that what you are practising is how to
lose money in unison does not appear to be relevant). You may find it
amusing to look for non-technical examples of European projects
achieving only their secondary goals. I nominate the 'Eurovision Song
Contest' and the British soap opera 'Eldorado'. The phrase "Airbus has
made everything except a profit" comes to mind, but I don't really know
any more than that.

Admittedly, total victory would have been the establishment of a
protocol suite owned by a European cartel, capable of extracting fees
from all those wishing to use the Euro-Internet. But it is not clear
that even outstanding technical success would have been sufficient here.
ASN.1 came closest, but today there are shareware SNMPs that contain
SNMP-ASN.1 parsers. I dare say there would have been a BSD-OSI and later
a Linux-OSI. The real failure was not to provide laws to erect
Intellectual Property barriers to competition. It would appear that
those lessons have been learned.

To be somewhat more constructive, I think there are so many ways to get
nowhere that the more useful question is "How did DARPA do so well?".
Many of those scarred by OSI were also in touch with TCP/IP and did
learn from it. Here's to "Rough Consensus and Running Code"!
--
A. G. McDowell

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 6, 2002, 9:10:11 AM5/6/02

to

"A. G. McDowell" <mcdo...@mcdowella.demon.co.uk> writes:
> To be somewhat more constructive, I think there are so many ways to get
> nowhere that the more useful question is "How did DARPA do so well?".
> Many of those scarred by OSI were also in touch with TCP/IP and did
> learn from it. Here's to "Rough Consensus and Running Code"!

Internop '88 had a large number of vendors that were also showing OSI
related products. Interop '88 was possibly the first time that a large
number of different boxes were connected to multiple LANs ... the
floor NET was four parallel LANs (remember OSI believed that LANs were
invalid and shouldn't be allowed to exist). Sunday the floor nets were
crashing welling into monday AM ... before the problem was diagnosed
... which resulted in a new (IETF) standard specification.

the concept of interneting & gateways (again something not provided
for by OSI and was ruled invalid/violations) had come about 1/1/83 and
in part allowed the internet to exceed the size of the internal
corporate network by sometime '85 (pre 1/1/83, non-internetworking &
non-gateway was much more straight OSI).

NSF had let RFP for NSFNET1 backbone ... however it came about at time
that the internet was growing, interneting/gateways was prooving valid
and there was huge excessive dark fiber capacity sitting around. The
result was that the amount of commercial resources dumped into the
backbone was far in excess of the funding provided by the NSF NSFNET
(& NSFNET2) backbone RFP (direct & indirect commercial backing was far
in excess of federal funding; there has been side threads in the past
about the acceptable use policies not allowing commercial use of the
NSFNET backbone because it was total federal backing). A conjecture
was that the dark fiber owners were attempting to promote both actual
use and the academic development of applications oriented towards
large bandwidth utilization (planting seeds for utilization demand of
the dark fiber bandwidth). One could say that they succeeded ... most
notably with the advent of Mosaic.

Craig Partridge

unread,

May 6, 2002, 12:15:29 PM5/6/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:

>NSF had let RFP for NSFNET1 backbone ... however it came about at time
>that the internet was growing, interneting/gateways was prooving valid
>and there was huge excessive dark fiber capacity sitting around. The
>result was that the amount of commercial resources dumped into the
>backbone was far in excess of the funding provided by the NSF NSFNET
>(& NSFNET2) backbone RFP

There was not a huge excess of capacity for NSFNET Phase I,
indeed, it was a struggle to get T1 lines for some locations. Nor was
there much corporate contribution. NSFNET Phase I was run on a shoestring.

Phase II there was a huge corporate buy-in, that exceeded the NSF contributions.

Craig Partridge
former Technical Director, NSFNET Service Center

Peter da Silva

unread,

May 6, 2002, 6:54:47 PM5/6/02

to

"The real failure was not to provide laws to erect Intellectual Property
barriers to competition. It would appear that those lessons have been

learned." -- A. G. McDowell on OSI

Nice sigquote.

--
I've seen things you people can't imagine. Chimneysweeps on fire over the roofs
of London. I've watched kite-strings glitter in the sun at Hyde Park Gate. All
these things will be lost in time, like chalk-paintings in the rain. `-_-'
Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U`

hfbonney

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May 7, 2002, 7:00:37 AM5/7/02

to

In comp.arch Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:

: "Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
:> OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
:> for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
:> twenty years, it failed completely.
:> It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
:> totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
:> that amount of money.
:> How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
:> fail in such a undignified way.

: 1) OSI was strongly oriented towards the telco copper wire
: point-to-point problems of the 70s & earlier, like high error rates
: and little or no FEC technology. it was also pre-LAN

Well, MAP and TOP were ISO stacks over 802.4 token bus and over ethernet,
respectively. MAP (Manufacturing Automation Protocol) added things
like mini-MAP where devices were connected at Layer 2 within a
manufacturing "cell". There must have been more implementation work
done on this standard for quite a while. I think Boeing went for it,
for one, though it was GM that started it (?). Does it still exist at
all?

The telco view is still creeping into the Net by growing tentacles
from ATM. MPLS sounds like something telco people might come up with
though I don't know anything about its history. Resisting such
intrusion and moving along with ipv6 seem to be the way forward.

Right now media companies are attempting to transform the Net into a
dispensing machine for their products. They may do this by spreading
a surprisingly small amount of money around Washington. If they succeed
they will highjack an amount of investment and intellectual work that
dwarfs anything they ever did.

H.---

Geoff Lane

unread,

May 7, 2002, 7:51:53 AM5/7/02

to

I don't know about the rest of the world, but on Janet (UK academic network)
OSI was a requirement and led to all kinds of evil. As there was no easy
access to OSI code, every major purchase could result in the supplier having
to also pay for a new port of OSI stack to the system.

Eventually there was a feasability project started to see what would happen
if TCP/IP were tunnelled over X25. This was made to work quite well
(packets sent point-2-point over a virtual circuit does work) and over the
years more and more traffic used this method (you could have a single
gateway machine per site.)

Finally, the situation had to change and everything was switched over to
pure TCP/IP (and X25 ended up being tunnelled :-)

As I recall, OSI dealt with TCP/IP by just admitting it into the spec as a
variation of existing levels. This is akin to dealing with an Alien face
hugger by allowing it to implant it's embryo in your body.

--
/\ Geoff. Lane. /\ Manchester Computing /\ Manchester /\ M13 9PL /\ England /\

Today's Excuse: Program load too heavy for processor to lift.

Geoff Lane

unread,

May 7, 2002, 7:39:12 AM5/7/02

to

John R Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote:
> Apparently it's possible to implement parts of OSI like FTAM to be
> reasonably efficient if you merge the levels that need merging, but by
> the time people figured that out nobody cared.

It's the difference between a _reference_ implementation that's supposed to
be "correct" but may be unusable and a real world implemenation where fast
and working is prefered over correctness :-)

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 7, 2002, 11:42:16 AM5/7/02

to

cra...@world.std.com (Craig Partridge) writes:
> There was not a huge excess of capacity for NSFNET Phase I,
> indeed, it was a struggle to get T1 lines for some locations. Nor was
> there much corporate contribution. NSFNET Phase I was run on a shoestring.

I believe we have agreed offline that I was referring to NSFNET1
(phase I) & NSFNET2 (phase 2) backbone RFP for T1 & T3 backbones.

What I was calling NSFNET1 backbone ... was the RFP for "T1" backbone
which was "won" by Merit, IBM, & MCI (for $11.2m, if I remember
right), and NSFNET2 backbone was for RFP for "T3" backbone. Both the
NSFNET1 backbone and NSFNET2 backbone were heavily subsidized by
commercial sources far in excess of the RFP bid awards/funding by the
federal gov:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#10

Earlier NSFNET/CSNET efforts funded by NSFNET were shoestring (aka not
the heavy commerical subsidy of later activities) ... somewhat
related:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#37a

only slightly related:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#65

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 7, 2002, 12:02:21 PM5/7/02

to

hfbonney <hfbo...@sonic.net> writes:
> Well, MAP and TOP were ISO stacks over 802.4 token bus and over ethernet,
> respectively. MAP (Manufacturing Automation Protocol) added things
> like mini-MAP where devices were connected at Layer 2 within a
> manufacturing "cell". There must have been more implementation work
> done on this standard for quite a while. I think Boeing went for it,
> for one, though it was GM that started it (?). Does it still exist at
> all?

but was it an ISO OSI stack?

ANSI X3S3.3 had standards responsibility for approx. network/transport
level responsibility and fed into the corresponding standards body at
the ISO level. the message was that x3s3.3 could work on HSP (high
speed protocol) but that the ISO group wouldn't pass it as a standard
... because the charter for that standards group was that standards
had to conform to the OSI model (and the ISO group responsible for
lower level standards activity also had charter that stated they could
only pass standards that conformed to the OSI model).

That doesn't say that there weren't other ANSI and ISO groups that
could pass standards ... which didn't require conforming to OSI model
... especially if they were in specialized industries.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 7, 2002, 12:35:27 PM5/7/02

to

The layered approach, really nothing to shout about, was not a OSI
achievement. They borrowed this from IBMs SNA and Honeywells network.
OSI contribution seems almost negative, giving people the wrong ideas
and
mindset about networks.

"Peter da Silva" <pe...@abbnm.com> wrote in message
news:aapp08$k...@web.eng.baileynm.com

> In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

> Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> > for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> > twenty years, it failed completely.
>

> I think "failed completely" is too strong. Many ISO defined standards
> and techniques are in use. But, yes, it didn't meet with the success they
> hoped for.

I am wondering whether they really wanted technical success or had some
baser motivation for their "activities". They look very "puffed up"
with no substance.

> > How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> > fail in such a undignified way.

> The bottom line is that any successful scheme has to include a way to
> get from where people are now to where you want them to be, and it seems
> that only people who are trying to actually get from here to there as
> they're designing things seem to bother with making it easy to do it.

Making things easy is clearly not part of ISO and CCITT culture.
Money is.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 7, 2002, 1:58:18 PM5/7/02

to

"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:

> The layered approach, really nothing to shout about, was not a OSI
> achievement. They borrowed this from IBMs SNA and Honeywells network.
> OSI contribution seems almost negative, giving people the wrong ideas
> and
> mindset about networks.

note that IBMs SNA implementation was hardly layered. might say that
it was the opposite of layered. there has been some folklore that a
lot of SNA was driven by a project that I was involved in as an
undergraduate that produced the first PCM (plug compatible)
controller.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#360pcm

the internal corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet) for much
of the early life (until approx. '85) was not SNA based. In fact, SNA
didn't even have a "network" layer ... it was oriented towards
providing large scale, centrialized terminal control operation. The
first appearance of anything resembling networking was with APPN. The
SNA group non-concurred with the announcement of APPN ... and there
was a 3 month delay while the issues were resolved. The final
announcement letter was carefully crafted to not directly link APPN (&
networking) and SNA in any way what so ever.

my wife spent a very short stint early on with SNA architecture
group. this was before she went to pok with responsibility for
loosely-coupled architecture and wrote "peer-coupled shared data"
architecture (basis for IMS hotstandby and later sysplex). The
loosely-coupled/cluster stuff was also not SNA.

random past posts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindex.html#network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindx2.html#network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopoc.html#networking
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

misc. other folklore:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#69 oddly portable machines.

Dirk Fieldhouse

unread,

May 8, 2002, 5:55:27 AM5/8/02

to

In article <0de8ba.8d9.ln@twirl>, Geoff Lane (zza...@twirl.mcc.ac.uk) says...

>
>
>John R Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote:
>> Apparently it's possible to implement parts of OSI like FTAM to be
>> reasonably efficient if you merge the levels that need merging, but by
>> the time people figured that out nobody cared.
>
>It's the difference between a _reference_ implementation that's supposed to
>be "correct" but may be unusable and a real world implemenation where fast
>and working is prefered over correctness :-)

A merged implementation should also be correct in the sense of conforming to
the requirements of the relevant OSI standards and profiles. There is/was
absolutely no requirement for any internal interfaces according to the
specifications. Layering was a module structure intended as a functional
breakdown to facilitate development of specifications by separate committees.

For instance, you could easily imagine an implementation where layers 5-7 are
one module and layers 3 and 4 are another with plugins for various layer 1+2
combinations. Call it an OSI internet. It could only work with TP4 and CLNP
because no-one believed strongly enough in the idea of a connection-oriented
internetwork to write the necessary standards. If TUBA had been accepted, the
Internet would have gone that way.

And the answer to the question is that TCP/IP-based networking met the majority
of customer requirements for almost no cost, whereas OSI products met very few
of these requirements and only grudgingly and at a high price.

FWup: comp.protocols.iso

--
Dirk Fieldhouse Logica UK Limited
field...@logica.com 75 Hampstead Road
c=gb;a=attmail;p=logica; London NW1 2PL
o=LOGICA;ou1=UK;s=fieldhouse UK
+44 (20) 7637 9111

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 8, 2002, 10:01:58 AM5/8/02

to

Dirk Fieldhouse <field...@logica.com> writes:
> A merged implementation should also be correct in the sense of conforming to
> the requirements of the relevant OSI standards and profiles. There is/was
> absolutely no requirement for any internal interfaces according to the
> specifications. Layering was a module structure intended as a functional
> breakdown to facilitate development of specifications by separate committees.

that is not what was said in the ansi x3s3.3 (responsible for level3/4
standards) meeting as to what the corresponding ISO (level3/4) group
would do if x3s3.3 passed a standard that didn't follow/include level3
interfaces ... i.e. HSP (high-speed protocol) ... going from
level4/transport directly to IEEE 803 (LANs) ... which is about the
middle of level3, aka IEEE 803 subsumes level1, level2, and part of
level3/network.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 8, 2002, 10:23:51 AM5/8/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> that is not what was said in the ansi x3s3.3 (responsible for level3/4
> standards) meeting as to what the corresponding ISO (level3/4) group

from some long ago trip report ... as an aside, I believe that there
was a talk given at Aug89 IETF meeting at stanford that the "fastpath"
had been further reduced to 120 instruction (ref. at the end).

From lynn Mon Apr 24 13:44:57 1989
To: ???
cc: ????
Subject: ANSI standards

Quicky note on ansi x3s3.3 and xtp meetings last week. More
information coming as time allows.

A "high speed networking & transport protocol" proposal was submitted
by the xtp people at the x3s3.3 meeting. After various discussions it
was decided to submit a "study proposal for high speed protocols" to
the x3 committee ... the work product of which will be some number of
protocol proposals.

Problems with the original protocol proposal were numerous. Many
people objected to it violating the OSI reference model (and in fact
it is not possible to submit a protocol proposal to X3 that violates
the reference model ... although it is possible to approve an ANSI
standard that does violate the reference model ... but that takes some
fine work ... case in point are the LAN protocols ... especially with
FDDI coming up thru level 1 and 2 well into level 3).

The other camps were that existing protocols could be modified ... and
then of course the XTP camp. Existing protocol modification camp
doesn't adequately take into account that hardware/technology (x3s3.3
is responsible for levels 3 & 4) is eating them from below (and
high-speed protocol standard will have to face that reality).

The current plan is to attempt having the work group responsible for the
high-speed protocol study to co-schedule the meetings with the XTP TAB
meetings.

Also during the meeting, I had a talk with ??????. He mentioned that
he just got a hard copy of a paper from Berkeley that mentioned they
have done some sort of enhanced perfomance TCP/IP that gets the
pathlength down to 200 instructions (modifications to mbuffs, timer
handling, interrupt handling, etc). Jacob mentioned that he would send
me a copy.

Toon Moene

unread,

May 9, 2002, 5:35:30 AM5/9/02

to

"Jan C. Vorbrüggen" wrote:

> > OSI isn't the only standard that suffered from this syndrome, by the
> > way. For example, take a look at Fortran 90 sometime. Be sure to
> > bring a barf bag with you.
>
> Compared to what - C? C++? Bah, nonsense.

Two or three J3 meetings ago we estimated (based on the fact that all
the required new stuff was in and only integration work still had to be
done) that the upcoming F2K Standard would be about 100 pages less than
the C99 Standard.

Strictly speaking, this is a rather loose metric for complexity, but it
is ironic.

--
Toon Moene - mailto:to...@moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Maintainer, GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
Join GNU Fortran 95: http://g95.sourceforge.net/ (under construction)

Craig Partridge

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May 9, 2002, 10:12:27 AM5/9/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:

>Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
>> that is not what was said in the ansi x3s3.3 (responsible for level3/4
>> standards) meeting as to what the corresponding ISO (level3/4) group

>from some long ago trip report ... as an aside, I believe that there
>was a talk given at Aug89 IETF meeting at stanford that the "fastpath"
>had been further reduced to 120 instruction (ref. at the end).

Key work appears in:

%A V. Jacobson
%T 4BSD Header Prediction
%J ACM Computer Communication Review
%D April 1990
%V 20
%N 1
%P 13-15

also worth looking at

%A D.D. Clark
%A V. Jacobson
%A J. Romkey
%A H. Salwen
%T An Analysis of TCP Processing Overhead
%J IEEE Communications
%D June 1989
%V 27
%N 6
%P 23-29

Craig

Tony Finch

unread,

May 9, 2002, 11:18:15 AM5/9/02

to

Toon Moene <to...@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> wrote:
>
>Two or three J3 meetings ago we estimated (based on the fact that all
>the required new stuff was in and only integration work still had to be
>done) that the upcoming F2K Standard would be about 100 pages less than
>the C99 Standard.

How much of F2K is language and how much is libraries? C99 is about
150 pages of language and 250 pages of library, plus another 130-odd
non-normative pages (annexes and indexes and so forth).

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
NORTHWEST BAILEY: VARIABLE 3. RAIN LATER. GOOD BECOMING MODERATE.

Toon Moene

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May 9, 2002, 3:16:14 PM5/9/02

to

Tony Finch wrote:

> Toon Moene <to...@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> wrote:

> >Two or three J3 meetings ago we estimated (based on the fact that all
> >the required new stuff was in and only integration work still had to be
> >done) that the upcoming F2K Standard would be about 100 pages less than
> >the C99 Standard.
>
> How much of F2K is language and how much is libraries? C99 is about
> 150 pages of language and 250 pages of library, plus another 130-odd
> non-normative pages (annexes and indexes and so forth).

14 pages introduction.
175 pages language (def/decl of stuff, expressions).
75 pages on I/O.
40 pages of description of modules.
75 pages of intrinsic functions.
27 pages of IEEE-754 conformance.
15 pages of C interoperability.
30 pages of scope, definition and association clarification.
11 pages of glossary.
50 pages of extended notes.
10 pages of index.
40 pages of syntax rules (i.e. BNF).

Oh, BTW, you can look for yourself - the (draft) Standard is available
at http://www.j3-fortran.org/ and is in LaTeX format - so it's
processable with free software :-)

Tony Finch

unread,

May 10, 2002, 1:06:00 AM5/10/02

to

Toon Moene <to...@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> wrote:

>Tony Finch wrote:
>>
>> How much of F2K is language and how much is libraries? C99 is about
>> 150 pages of language and 250 pages of library, plus another 130-odd
>> non-normative pages (annexes and indexes and so forth).
>
>14 pages introduction.
>175 pages language (def/decl of stuff, expressions).
>75 pages on I/O.
>40 pages of description of modules.
>75 pages of intrinsic functions.
>27 pages of IEEE-754 conformance.
>15 pages of C interoperability.
>30 pages of scope, definition and association clarification.
>11 pages of glossary.
>50 pages of extended notes.
>10 pages of index.
>40 pages of syntax rules (i.e. BNF).

Hmm, looks to me like the difference is in the library -- string
handling and i18n may be the bulk of it?

>Oh, BTW, you can look for yourself - the (draft) Standard is available
>at http://www.j3-fortran.org/ and is in LaTeX format - so it's
>processable with free software :-)

Nice.

Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

FISHER: EAST VEERING SOUTHEAST 5 TO 7, OCCASIONALLY GALE 8. SHOWERS LATER.
MODERATE OR GOOD.

dionysus

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May 13, 2002, 10:56:06 AM5/13/02

to

windows started off pretty cheap, and provided something (a gui
environment for file ops, running programs (including its internal
programs) from etc) not really available at that stage (gem desktop
wasn't *that* good....and I think windows 2.0 had quite a features
over it.....and linux wasn't even a dream in tolvalds head by the late
80s, was it?....not to forget, it was more or less *guarenteed* to
play nice with the 99% majority OS at the time - DOS).....now, linux
is a genuine competitor for the x86 market, but windows is too
entrenched, methinks :-<

makes sense to me

-d

On Thu, 02 May 2002 13:16:46 GMT, Bob Willard <Bobw...@attbi.com>
wrote:

>Pete Fenelon wrote:
>>
>> Any standard that was going to "take over the world" had to be
>> non-proprietary, though...
>
>Really? Is the success of WinDuhs due to its robustness, or what?

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 15, 2002, 12:24:01 PM5/15/02

to

Thanks for a very knowledgeable reply. I hope you find my comments
appropriate.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message news:<uoffz8...@earthlink.net>...

> "Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> > for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> > twenty years, it failed completely.

> > It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> > totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> > that amount of money.

> > How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> > fail in such a undignified way.
>

> 1) OSI was strongly oriented towards the telco copper wire
> point-to-point problems of the 70s & earlier, like high error rates
> and little or no FEC technology. it was also pre-LAN

Very good point. They were also connection-oriented

> 2) TCP/IP was a working implementation ... where OSI tended to be a
> lot of specification independent of practical implementation ... IETF
> at least required two operational, interoperable implementations prior
> to advancement to RFC.

The OSI approach should never have been tolerated, especially for so
long. The approach of "working in the clouds" and descending to
provide orders on how to proceed (the "specifications") is a common
approach in organisations like ISO and CCITT. It is a disastrous way
to deal with networking, which is a very diverse, complex and dynamic
field.

> 3) TCP/IP underwent major evolution with the 1/1/83 cut-over from the
> strongly host-to-host orientation into "internet" (aka IP part of
> tcp/ip).

It is very user-driven which is probably its greatest asset.

> in the late '80s at one point in X3S3.3 (ansi standards for equivalent
> to OSI level 3 & 4) ... work on high speed protocol (HSP) effort was
> fealt to be very dubious because progression to ISO level supposedly
> required conformance with seperation of level 3 & level 4
> operations. HSP would have collapsed portions of level 3 & 4 into
> single level. The ISO & ANSI OSI-related groups were already quite
> skizo over this requirement since IEEE 803 had already collapsed OSI
> level 1, level 2, and parts of level 3 into single layer (and there
> was no obvious easy way of declaring LANs invalid and having them all
> destroyed). HSP would have filled between the level 4 interface to
> IEEE 803 (aka all of OSI level 4 and all of OSI level 3 not already
> occupied by IEEE 803).

I dealt with standards groups when LANs were introduced. They thought
they were defining snd dictating (emphasis on the latter) what
technology should be doing. They ridiculed LANs, ATM, Broadband and
other new technologies and felt these technologies would have to be
disbanded; they were the products of fools. It was for me a very
surreal experience.

> in that sense the organizational activities around the "pure,
> original, OSI architecture" wasn't very agile at adapting to changing
> technology. There were lots of organizational mandates about meeting
> pure architecture specification ... but not a whole lot of attention
> to practicallities of the real market and changing technology.

They were "in over their heads" as Americans say. They had no real
understanding of the networking industry and its main driver, personal
computers. The requirement for a "pure, original OSI architecture" is
almost reminiscent of the Fuhrer himself.

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#63 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#70 When the Internet went private

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#72 When the Internet went private

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#19 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#57 I am fed up!

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#16 Pre ARPAnet email?

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#17 Pre ARPAnet email?
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#23 Pre ARPAnet email?
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#24 Pre ARPAnet email?
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#25 Pre ARPAnet email?
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#32 Blame it all on Microsoft
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#34 Blame it all on Microsoft

> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#5 YKYGOW...
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#6 YKYGOW...

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 15, 2002, 12:30:03 PM5/15/02

to

ta...@dw.esands.com wrote in message news:<slrnad1su...@quark.ether.net>...
> In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

> Rudvar Alswill wrote:
>
> > OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> > for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> > twenty years, it failed completely.
>

> IMO OSI flopped because:
>
> 1. It defied comprehension, it arrived late, and the passing
> of time rendered it irrelevant. A classic committe opus
> magnum.

They had no idea what they were doing. This is quite a shocking fact.

> 2. The US Govt kindly picked up the bill/cheque/tab for TCP/IP
> which did the job. Why would anyone bother with OSI?

>
>
> > How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> > fail in such a undignified way.
> >
>

> That's what IT people do. :)

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 15, 2002, 12:45:39 PM5/15/02

to

pr...@ZAnkh-Morpork.mv.com (Paul Winalski) wrote in message news:<3cd1a0a3....@proxy.news.easynews.com>...

> On Wed, 1 May 2002 19:02:00 +0000 (UTC), "Rudvar Alswill"
> <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> >for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> >twenty years, it failed completely.

> >It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> >totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> >that amount of money.

> >How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> >fail in such a undignified way.
>

> I'd say several reasons:
>
> (1) You've heard the old joke: An elephant is a mouse designed by
> committee. Design-by-committee is one of the worst ways to approach
> a problem.

I dont think the committee approach was the problem. ISO and CCITT had
the wrong frame of mind and were not capable of performing the task
they set out to. I wonder whether it was not just a excuse to spend
other peoples money.

> (2) Standards bodies such as OSI tend to be dominated by two
> classes of participants: Those with a particular axe to grind (such
> as the European PTTs, who were interested in making sure they
> had to change their equipment and procedures as little as possible),
> and ivory tower academics. Everyone else is generally too busy doing
> produtive work to waste time on committees.

Just about everything I read from the committees felt like hot air and
looked like trash. These may be strong words, but I think the conduct
borders on fraud and corruption.

>
> In the case of OSI, I think it was mainly turf protection on the
> part of the PTTs that resulted in the standard being excessively
> complicated and hence expensive to implement.

To standards bodies, complexity is a mark of superiority and
excellence. I stand by my statement "They had NO idea what they were
doing, the technology they were dealing with, the end-user
requirements, of the thinking process required to perform the task".

> Meanwhile, you had TCP/IP, which was a standard commissioned
> by a single entity (the US DoD) from a single design firm (BBN), and
> which was put in place on the ARPAnet (one of the largest networks

> at the time) by fiat. TCP/IP's was insured when support for it got
> bundled for free with UNIX. UNIX spread first among universities,
> becaus AT&T practically gave it away in that marketplace, and
> ARPAnet connectivity was important there, whereas OSI connectivity
> was irrelevant to that community. So UNIX got a free implementation
> of TCP/IP but not OSI. An ever-increasing market presence went
> the rest of the way of pushing OSI into irrelevance.
>
> ----------
> Remove 'Z' to reply by email.

Mark Crispin

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May 15, 2002, 1:05:00 PM5/15/02

to

On 15 May 2002, Rudvar Alswill wrote:
> The approach of "working in the clouds" and descending to
> provide orders on how to proceed (the "specifications") is a common
> approach in organisations like ISO and CCITT. It is a disastrous way
> to deal with networking, which is a very diverse, complex and dynamic
> field.

Unfortunately, this is fairly typical of how not only ISO and CCITT, but
also of the EU bureaucracy. The main impact to US technology is not so
much the competition from ISO/CCITT/EU, but rather the time that has to be
expended in fighting off our own bureaucrats who want to order us to adopt
the "international standards" instead of doing what is right.

GOSIP was an incredible waste of US tax funds, and everybody involved with
it knew it. Or at least the poor saps who had to do the actual work.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.

Rudvar Alswill

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May 22, 2002, 11:56:02 AM5/22/02

to

"Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message
news:uk7qfl...@earthlink.net

> "Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > The layered approach, really nothing to shout about, was not a OSI
> > achievement. They borrowed this from IBMs SNA and Honeywells network.
> > OSI contribution seems almost negative, giving people the wrong ideas
> > and
> > mindset about networks.
>
> note that IBMs SNA implementation was hardly layered. might say that
> it was the opposite of layered.

I read that OSI was inspired by SNA in a book by William Stallings, who
wrote quite a few books on computers and communications. It seems that
he is a spokesman for IBM and praises their efforts and products very
highly, even recommending their approach and "networks". Do you knnow
anything about Stallings and why he is wedding people to the IBM
mindset?

>
> the internal corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet) for much
> of the early life (until approx. '85) was not SNA based. In fact, SNA
> didn't even have a "network" layer ... it was oriented towards
> providing large scale, centrialized terminal control operation.

This confirms my suspicions for many years that IBM understood very
little about networking and communications.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 22, 2002, 12:30:30 PM5/22/02

to

"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> This confirms my suspicions for many years that IBM understood very
> little about networking and communications.

SNA was terminal communications ... and did it very well ... managing
huge numbers of terminals ... a medium size corporate installation
might have 65,000 terminals connected to a mainframe.

The (IBM) internal coporate network had effectively the equivalent of
gateways from the beginning and one of the attributes that the
internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet until
approx. mid-85 (with arpanet/internet not getting internetworking and
gateways until the 1/1/83 switch-over).

now it may be true that SNA didn't have networking ... but it had one
of the most sophisticated communication structures for supporting
terminals. on the otherhand, the people responsible for the internal
network (and the technology for bitnet) understood networking quite
well ... having effectively supported gateways from the very beginning
(circa 1970 ... versis arpanet/internet not getting it until 1/1/83).

people with SNA infrastructures could get service level agreements
... contractual commitments for operational characteristics with
penalties for not meeting the commitments. when did internet start
providing service level agreements?

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 22, 2002, 1:12:04 PM5/22/02

to

"A. G. McDowell" <mcdo...@mcdowella.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:qrtgOLAn...@mcdowella.demon.co.uk

> In article <cf06af11400bb235934...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
> Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> writes

> >OSI was started in the seventies to find a model and develop protocols
> >for computer communications. At a cost of almost 1 Billion dollars and
> >twenty years, it failed completely.
> >It was strongly supported by Telecom groups in Europe. Yet they were
> >totally discredited by producing virtually nothing in that time and for
> >that amount of money.
> >How did so many highly technical people waste so much time and money and
> >fail in such a undignified way.
> >
> >

> Much of OSI was funded from European sources. An important secondary
> goal was to channel money to European industry, academic research, and
> international cooperation. From this point of view, OSI was
> outstandingly effective. Many companies were able to get European
> funding for work they would have done anyway.

The entire OSI escapade was, in retrospect, a heaven for corrupt
institutions. It was a pretence, it is now clear, of doing important
and grand work while just having a holiday.
OSI was "oustandingly effective" for allowing people to obtain large
amounts of money to basically do pretentious work that amounted to
little, and could even be considered regressive.

> Academics were funded to
> write papers explaining why OSI was superior to TCP/IP. Both of these
> parties were induced to set up large committees and stage international
> meetings.

This is the problem. Without understanding basic things about the
underlying technology and users, OSI saw this as a battle and proceeded
into it as if it were still in the middle ages. Pedantic papers were
produced which impressed only the peasants, and there were many of
these. It looked more like an IBM type con game, in which they
produced things like "vapor products" and "vapor software". It was just
a expensive smokescreen which in the end exposed complete incompetence
of the standards bodies.

> Viewed in isolation, each of these participants was
> successful.

I dont think so. ISO, through OSI, has discredited itself completely
in the eyes of the computer and communications communities. It has
exposed itself over a long period as not capable of dealing with issues
realting to new technology, especially in a way that is in the interest
of the end-user.

> If fostering European
> cooperation and integration is an end in itself, a total loss is
> entirely acceptable (the fact that what you are practising is how to
> lose money in unison does not appear to be relevant).

I dont think the question here is of losing money only, but producing
nothing. As I wrote, ISO and CCITT have exposed their serious flaws
in dealing with problems like those of computer-communications.

> You may find it
> amusing to look for non-technical examples of European projects
> achieving only their secondary goals. I nominate the 'Eurovision Song
> Contest' and the British soap opera 'Eldorado'. The phrase "Airbus has
> made everything except a profit" comes to mind, but I don't really know
> any more than that.

Airbus is a viable company. OSI is no such thing.

> Admittedly, total victory would have been the establishment of a
> protocol suite owned by a European cartel, capable of extracting fees
> from all those wishing to use the Euro-Internet.

This is complete stupidity and madness! It is only a part of the mindset
that produced the OSI debacle. Incompetent people motivated by greed
in a very vulgar form.

> The real failure was not to provide laws to erect
> Intellectual Property barriers to competition. It would appear that
> those lessons have been learned.

I am not sure they have been learnt.

> To be somewhat more constructive, I think there are so many ways to get
> nowhere that the more useful question is "How did DARPA do so well?".
> Many of those scarred by OSI were also in touch with TCP/IP and did
> learn from it. Here's to "Rough Consensus and Running Code"!

Much can be learnt from asking that question. I am also absolutely sure
That ISO and CCITT, and academia too, learnt very little if anything
from this encounter. If a similar situation arose, lessons that should
have been learnt will not be evident. Some things never change.

Del Cecchi

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May 22, 2002, 12:56:00 PM5/22/02

to

In article <d691bb28a323ab7d0f6...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
|> "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message
|> news:uk7qfl...@earthlink.net
|>

snip

|>
|> >
|> > the internal corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet) for much
|> > of the early life (until approx. '85) was not SNA based. In fact, SNA
|> > didn't even have a "network" layer ... it was oriented towards
|> > providing large scale, centrialized terminal control operation.
|>
|> This confirms my suspicions for many years that IBM understood very
|> little about networking and communications.
|>
|>
|>
|>
|> --
|> Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

And, pray tell, what kind of network were you running in the mid 70's?

--

Del Cecchi
cec...@us.ibm.com
Personal Opinions Only

Nick Maclaren

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May 22, 2002, 2:01:17 PM5/22/02

to

In article <acgij0$u4m$4...@news.rchland.ibm.com>,

Del Cecchi <cec...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>In article <d691bb28a323ab7d0f6...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
> "Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
>|> "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message
>|> news:uk7qfl...@earthlink.net
>|>

>|> > the internal corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet) for much
>|> > of the early life (until approx. '85) was not SNA based. In fact, SNA
>|> > didn't even have a "network" layer ... it was oriented towards
>|> > providing large scale, centrialized terminal control operation.
>|>
>|> This confirms my suspicions for many years that IBM understood very
>|> little about networking and communications.
>

>And, pray tell, what kind of network were you running in the mid 70's?

Well, as far as I recall, UK academia was already largely networked,
and certainly the University of Cambridge was. Various serial line
protocols, the Coloured Books and so on. Back in 1972, we regarded
IBM (as seen through its products) as understanding very little
about networking and communications - and we we right. Which
doesn't mean that the revisionists are correct that the pre-TCP/IP
cabal of the day understood much more about how deliver solutions
to real users, reliably and on a budget.

Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
wrong. It owed at least as much to the Coloured Books, and their
derived and related protocols (including many of the X. series).
Unfortunately, it got excessively committeefied (though the claims
of corruption are unjust, as TCP/IP was as bad - OSI's problems
were primarily bureaucratic).

Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email: nm...@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Bill Todd

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May 22, 2002, 2:10:33 PM5/22/02

to

"Del Cecchi" <cec...@signa.rchland.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:acgij0$u4m$4...@news.rchland.ibm.com...

...

> And, pray tell, what kind of network were you running in the mid 70's?

DECnet would have been one possibility (first released in 1975).

- bill

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 22, 2002, 2:49:40 PM5/22/02

to

nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) writes:
> Well, as far as I recall, UK academia was already largely networked,
> and certainly the University of Cambridge was. Various serial line
> protocols, the Coloured Books and so on. Back in 1972, we regarded
> IBM (as seen through its products) as understanding very little
> about networking and communications - and we we right. Which
> doesn't mean that the revisionists are correct that the pre-TCP/IP
> cabal of the day understood much more about how deliver solutions
> to real users, reliably and on a budget.

many of the large communication infra-structures were ibm mainframe
... things like airline reservation systems ... connecting to every
reservation office in the world ... even in the '60s ... things as
little as thousands of locations could be considered small ... getting
into tens of thousand of connections in the '60s & '70s wasn't
uncommon ... along with service level agreements, contractual
commitments with penalty clauses. Then along came things like ATM
machines in the '70s. For some infrastructures .... it isn't real
communications unless you have SLAs ... otherwise it is just toys for
playing.

not that this kind of infrastructure isn't a peer-to-peer operation
... but it surely is communicaiton. my wife did a short stint in the
SNA architecture group and got into trouble for trying to do
peer-to-peer. She also authored the peer-coupled shared data
architecture when she was in pok in charge of loosely-couple (aka
mainframe cluster) architecture (which took a while to emerge in
products).

it is like some of the threads about interactive time-sharing ... and
ibm not supporting interactive time-sharing. the counter argument was
that IBM may have had one of the largest interactive time-sharing
install bases ... but because 99 percent of the market was commerial
batch ... that when people thot of IBM they tended to think of
commercial batch. The corollary is that there was also a large
networking install ... but because possibly 99 percent of the market
was non-peer-to-peer terminal communication ... the dominant image was
non-peer-to-peer terminal communication (and possibly the majority of
the people/products that came into contact were the ones specialized
in non-peer-to-peer terminal communication).

misc. refs to APPN networking, SNA architecture review board presentation,
etc:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#53 APPC vs TCP/IP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#21 3745 and SNI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#31 3745 and SNI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#21 OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt

i worked on the first ibm telecommunication controller clone when i
was an undergraduate in the '60s. that spawned the 360 pcm controller
business. during the last 30 plus years pcm controller industry wasn't
exactly small potatoes (and the pcm controller manufactors didn't even
have a majority of the business).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#360pcm

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Nick Maclaren

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May 22, 2002, 3:53:21 PM5/22/02

to

In article <u4rh0o...@earthlink.net>,

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>
>many of the large communication infra-structures were ibm mainframe
>... things like airline reservation systems ... connecting to every
>reservation office in the world ... even in the '60s ... things as
>little as thousands of locations could be considered small ... getting
>into tens of thousand of connections in the '60s & '70s wasn't
>uncommon ... along with service level agreements, contractual
>commitments with penalty clauses. Then along came things like ATM
>machines in the '70s. For some infrastructures .... it isn't real
>communications unless you have SLAs ... otherwise it is just toys for
>playing.
>
>not that this kind of infrastructure isn't a peer-to-peer operation
>... but it surely is communicaiton. my wife did a short stint in the
>SNA architecture group and got into trouble for trying to do
>peer-to-peer. She also authored the peer-coupled shared data
>architecture when she was in pok in charge of loosely-couple (aka
>mainframe cluster) architecture (which took a while to emerge in
>products).

Yes, that is true, and I was being unclear. However, what it was
(mostly) was "transaction processing", which has very different
properties from communication as it is used on the Internet. The
reason that IBM mainframe divisions did not understand communication
was largely because they thought of pretty well everything in terms
of transaction processing and essentially unlimited budgets and
resources.

>it is like some of the threads about interactive time-sharing ... and
>ibm not supporting interactive time-sharing. the counter argument was
>that IBM may have had one of the largest interactive time-sharing
>install bases ... but because 99 percent of the market was commerial
>batch ... that when people thot of IBM they tended to think of
>commercial batch. The corollary is that there was also a large
>networking install ... but because possibly 99 percent of the market
>was non-peer-to-peer terminal communication ... the dominant image was
>non-peer-to-peer terminal communication (and possibly the majority of
>the people/products that came into contact were the ones specialized
>in non-peer-to-peer terminal communication).

Yes, I know of its size, but it was unbelievably primitive! Perhaps
10 years behind ICL in terms of (software) technology, and even
further behind the leaders. I present MVT+TSO as evidence, and doubt
that I need to say more!

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 22, 2002, 5:28:07 PM5/22/02

to

nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) writes:
> Yes, I know of its size, but it was unbelievably primitive! Perhaps
> 10 years behind ICL in terms of (software) technology, and even
> further behind the leaders. I present MVT+TSO as evidence, and doubt
> that I need to say more!

mvt was batch processing ... tso was crje under any other name (in
fact in the late '60s i did a modified version of HASP that supported
2741s and teletypes with CMS editor syntax). that is not to say that
there wasn't internal politics. cern did a tso/cms bake-off in '74 and
published the results at share. Inside the company this public
document was given a classification of confidential restricted
(available on a need to know basis only).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Russell Williams

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May 22, 2002, 8:53:44 PM5/22/02

to

As somebody who was on one of the related standards committees,
it is utterly unsurprising to me that ISO failed.

HP sent me -- ca. 1979, straight out of school, junior programmer in the
MPE/3000 datacomm lab -- as their rep to the X3.whatever, level
5/6 (I think) committee. I was stunned. The chairman was from Arthur
Anderson. The IBM rep was from marketing. After the second meeting
other members started coming to me as "one of the only people around
here who actually knows anything" (that stuck with me, for obvious
reasons -- to be fair, I'd been a professional programmer for 4-5 years
by then).

Having since known folks on the C++ standards committee, the delta in
average IQ points and clue level is mind boggling.

Russell Williams
not speaking for Adobe Systems

Bernd Paysan

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May 23, 2002, 7:37:20 AM5/23/02

to

Nick Maclaren wrote:
> Unfortunately, it got excessively committeefied (though the claims
> of corruption are unjust, as TCP/IP was as bad - OSI's problems
> were primarily bureaucratic).

IMHO the primary design mistake in TCP/IP is that it does not use a split
control/data stream approach, but uses the header for all possible controls
(which falls short, because the TCP designer only anticipated controls for
a stream-oriented pipe). That makes the packets larger than necessary and
the handling more complex, especially of higher-level protocols like FTP
and HTTP, which have control messages and data channels, and either must
try to use a single TCP socket for both (HTTP), or goes through hoops to
create a second one for data transfers (FTP).

That's the same design mistake Unix makes when it added ioctl() instead of
using a control stream for controls. Control commands should be plain text
commands, preferredly an extremely easy to parse format like what Forth or
Postscript use, but without programmability on the client's side (just
strings and (hex?) numbers and blanks/linefeed as delimiter). The listener
to a socket would inherit the system's dictionary (which just knows
controls to open and close a stream), and could extend that by user
commands (HTTP variables, GET/HEAD/POST..., whatever).

--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/

Brian Inglis

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May 24, 2002, 2:06:28 AM5/24/02

to

On 22 May 2002 19:53:21 GMT, nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren)
wrote:

There was the party line, as stated above, which was rigidly
enforced, and then there was the reality, which had users on
(skunk) VM/CMS systems doing a lot of interactive and networking
stuff, like HONE and VNET internally.
VM facilities like PVM and RSCS pretended to be terminal and RJE
printer and punch data streams to be able to pass through
heterogeneous IBM MF systems interconnected by fairly low speed
BiSync and SDLC lines, and provided equivalent functionality to
instant messaging, telnet, mail, file transfer, etc. at some cost
in bandwidth and node storage (store and forward spooling).
Many MVS/JES/TSO systems could not talk to each other without the
intervention of a VM system which could talk to each of them.
For the work expected from them, most IBM systems definitely ran
on (very large but) limited budgets and resources: they were cost
effective (for large values of cost).

>>it is like some of the threads about interactive time-sharing ... and
>>ibm not supporting interactive time-sharing. the counter argument was
>>that IBM may have had one of the largest interactive time-sharing
>>install bases ... but because 99 percent of the market was commerial
>>batch ... that when people thot of IBM they tended to think of
>>commercial batch. The corollary is that there was also a large
>>networking install ... but because possibly 99 percent of the market
>>was non-peer-to-peer terminal communication ... the dominant image was
>>non-peer-to-peer terminal communication (and possibly the majority of
>>the people/products that came into contact were the ones specialized
>>in non-peer-to-peer terminal communication).

VM/CMS was a very nice interactive fair share virtual memory (and
machine) networked time sharing system which was widespread
before most in-house time sharing systems supported virtual
memory or networking.
Its common scripting language (REXX) and editor (XEDIT) were at
least equal to those on other systems, judging from the number of
ports and clones, and some of us lived in XEDIT environments from
login to logout, just as some EMACS users did.

>Yes, I know of its size, but it was unbelievably primitive! Perhaps
>10 years behind ICL in terms of (software) technology, and even
>further behind the leaders. I present MVT+TSO as evidence, and doubt
>that I need to say more!

In the same time frame as S/370s/MVS/VM, most UK non-IBM-compat
shops ran ICL 1900s and George, which seemed very primitive by
comparison.
I'm not sure how many ICL shops survived the 2900 series fiascos
with VME/B and then VME/K, which may have been (b)leading edge
technology, but seemed at the time to be too big a step for firms
(including ICL) used to the 1900 approach to cope with.
What happened to ICL as a result? Bought by a Japanese IBM PCM.

Who would you consider the commercial leaders in that time frame
and in what way were their offerings better than others available
at the time?

MVS and TSO were and are effective pigs for certain limited types
of work.

--

Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply

tos...@aol.com ab...@aol.com ab...@yahoo.com ab...@hotmail.com ab...@msn.com ab...@sprint.com ab...@earthlink.com ab...@cadvision.com ab...@ibsystems.com u...@ftc.gov
spam traps

Nick Maclaren

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May 24, 2002, 4:48:01 AM5/24/02

to

In article <22jreuc8gl0daluld...@4ax.com>,

Brian Inglis <Brian....@SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote:
>On 22 May 2002 19:53:21 GMT, nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren)
>wrote:
>
>>

>>Yes, that is true, and I was being unclear. However, what it was
>>(mostly) was "transaction processing", which has very different
>>properties from communication as it is used on the Internet. The
>>reason that IBM mainframe divisions did not understand communication
>>was largely because they thought of pretty well everything in terms
>>of transaction processing and essentially unlimited budgets and
>>resources.
>
>There was the party line, as stated above, which was rigidly
>enforced, and then there was the reality, which had users on
>(skunk) VM/CMS systems doing a lot of interactive and networking
>stuff, like HONE and VNET internally.

At the date I was talking about, VM/CMS was not available to most
(even academic) customers. If it had been, we would probably have
used it in preference to MVT+TSO. The only system that we could
have used was MTS - and perhaps GUTS - neither produced by IBM.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

May 24, 2002, 9:44:23 AM5/24/02

to

Brian Inglis <Brian....@SystematicSw.ab.ca> writes:
> There was the party line, as stated above, which was rigidly
> enforced, and then there was the reality, which had users on
> (skunk) VM/CMS systems doing a lot of interactive and networking
> stuff, like HONE and VNET internally.

and VNET had the equivalent of a gateway in every node. The MVS
networking in JES2 was more traditional ... being a traditional
homogeneous design ... more like the original arpanet NCP-based
networking (both vnet & jes2 were host-to-host designs like
arpanet/ncp ... but w/o the IMP FEPs). however this resulted in a
large number of complications trying to integrate MVS/JES2 systems
into the internal network ... which tended to be at end-nodes
only. One of the early experiences was that the homogenity of JES2 was
so ingrained that a message from one JES2 at one release level that
slight header changes would cause a JES2 at another release level to
crash (which in turn brought down the whole MVS system). There is the
case of a Hursley MVS/JES2 system sending messages to a San Jose
MVS/JES2 system and causing it to crash. As a result, not only were
MVS/JES2 systems relegated to end-nodes, but the (intermediate-node)
VNET node that a directly connected MVS/JES2 ... not only had gateway
code for doing JES2 header rewrites ... but also made sure that the
JES2 header rewrite code matched the version of the connected
MVS/JES2. There were even cases where a simple two-node MVS/JES2
network would have an intermediate VNET node between them that would
supply the necessary JES2 header rewrite rules when necessary
(i.e. when one JES2 system was upgraded but not syncronized with the
other JES2 system upgrade).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 27, 2002, 4:13:28 PM5/27/02

to

cec...@signa.rchland.ibm.com (Del Cecchi) wrote in message news:<acgij0$u4m$4...@news.rchland.ibm.com>...

> In article <d691bb28a323ab7d0f6...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
> "Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
> |> "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message
> |> news:uk7qfl...@earthlink.net
> |>
> snip
> |>
> |> >
> |> > the internal corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet) for much
> |> > of the early life (until approx. '85) was not SNA based. In fact, SNA
> |> > didn't even have a "network" layer ... it was oriented towards
> |> > providing large scale, centrialized terminal control operation.
> |>
> |> This confirms my suspicions for many years that IBM understood very
> |> little about networking and communications.
>

> And, pray tell, what kind of network were you running in the mid 70's?

At that time, the only network I was using employed very long
sessions! They were the female variety.
I used networks in the 80s. They were the Ethernet (NOT token ring)
LAN and some type of X.25 packet-switched WAN.

Rudvar Alswill

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May 27, 2002, 4:20:42 PM5/27/02

to

The ignorance you witnessed aws also present at high levels. Senior
members of the standards bodies had absolutely no understanding or
idea of what was expected of a network in the 80s. They thought they
could do all this abstractly without bothering with the technology
which ran the standards.

"Russell Williams" <will...@adobe.com> wrote in message news:<s4XG8.141$j6.1...@newshog.newsread.com>...

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 30, 2002, 12:56:25 PM5/30/02

to

"Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk

> Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
> wrong.

This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.

> Unfortunately, it got excessively committeefied

I really dont think this was the problem. The byzantine committee
structure was more by design, and has suspect motives. The bodies
in question were strongly motivated by dark sentiments - like greed and
control. They were not equipped to see the revolutionary potential of
the unfolding technology and the demands it made on them.

> though the claims
> of corruption are unjust

Corruption is embedded in all structures of this type, whether political
economic, academic. It is part of the culture and implicit in its
modus operandi. Even the EU, despite token efforts to change it, is a
happy victim of this mindset.

> OSI's problems
> were primarily bureaucratic).

They were mainly cultural. Their philosophy, or lack of it, was perhaps
their most fatal shortcoming.

>
>
> Regards,
> Nick Maclaren,
> University of Cambridge Computing Service,
> New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
> Email: nm...@cam.ac.uk
> Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Nick Maclaren

unread,

May 30, 2002, 1:11:57 PM5/30/02

to

In article <5356fc2966826298acf...@mygate.mailgate.org>,

Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk
>
>> Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
>> wrong.
>
>This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
>this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
>also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.

Not a clue. Yes, I can believe that SNA was a major influence,
but I know for certain the origin of some aspects that were not
from SNA. And Honeywell could well have been anouther source.

>> Unfortunately, it got excessively committeefied
>
>I really dont think this was the problem. The byzantine committee
>structure was more by design, and has suspect motives. The bodies
>in question were strongly motivated by dark sentiments - like greed and
>control. They were not equipped to see the revolutionary potential of
>the unfolding technology and the demands it made on them.

I think that this is unfair. The Byzantine committee structure may
well have been deliberate, but the originators didn't take account
of the way that such committees spawn complexity and delay. God
alone knows why - it is not exactly an unusual occurrence, or even
new! It was an old problem by the time of the Byzantine empire ....

>> though the claims
>> of corruption are unjust
>
>Corruption is embedded in all structures of this type, whether political
>economic, academic. It is part of the culture and implicit in its
>modus operandi. Even the EU, despite token efforts to change it, is a
>happy victim of this mindset.

Yes and no. Yes, that is partially true. No, it was no worse
than TCP/IP, which attracted its own breed of corruption once
it left academia and got taken up commercially.

>> OSI's problems
>> were primarily bureaucratic).
>
>They were mainly cultural. Their philosophy, or lack of it, was perhaps
>their most fatal shortcoming.

Well, yes, but I would call it a culture of bureaucracy :-)

John S. Giltner, Jr.

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May 30, 2002, 10:52:34 PM5/30/02

to

Rudvar Alswill wrote:
> "Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk
>
>
>>Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
>>wrong.
>
>
> This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
> this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
> also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.
>
>

Sorry to get into the middle of this, if I remember correctly IBM was
working on SNA at the same time that OSI was being developled and had
people that were part of the OSI working group, so did Honeywell. IBM
wanted SNA to be compatiable with the OSI model, but felt that things
were moving to slow and IBM wanted a network archicture. So they
continued on with SNA development and released and announced prior to
OSI being standardized.

I found a Web page where William Stallings stated the the OSI sevel
layer model was standarized in 1977, I tought that it was earlier that
than, but I do know the work on OSI started in the earlier 70's. IBM
announced SNA in 1974.

Now I was in elementry school during the early 70's. Got invloved with
IBM mainframes since 1982, mainly in networking. I do know when IBM
introduced SNA, but as for OSI that was from memory of classes I took 15
years ago. Never really used anything that was totally OSI based, so I
do not remember a whole lot about its history.

Dirk Fieldhouse

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May 31, 2002, 2:25:43 PM5/31/02

to

In article <3CF6E524...@earthlink.net>, John S. Giltner, Jr.
(gil...@earthlink.net) says...

>
>Rudvar Alswill wrote:
>> "Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
>> news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk
>>
>>>Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
>>>wrong.
>>
>> This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
>> this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
>> also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.

Pro-IBM? More likely, Stallings cast around for the worst thing to say about
IBM and it was to blame the OSI Reference Model on them ...

Actually I would recommend Stallings as an expositor.

>Sorry to get into the middle of this, if I remember correctly IBM was
>working on SNA at the same time that OSI was being developled and had
>people that were part of the OSI working group, so did Honeywell. IBM
>wanted SNA to be compatiable with the OSI model, but felt that things
>were moving to slow and IBM wanted a network archicture. So they
>continued on with SNA development and released and announced prior to
>OSI being standardized.

IBM wanted OSI not to improve on the network architecture to which their main
money-earner of the time committed them, namely big machine(s) star-connected
via terminal controllers to expensive terminals; in particular, not to lead to
anything like peer-peer communications and the Internet. But TCP/IP did for it
anyway.

Whether such protectionist interests could have led to the introduction of
over-complex proposals in areas of OSI like the session layer with consequent
delays to the standardisation programme, who can say?

>...>

/df

Rudvar Alswill

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May 31, 2002, 2:58:25 PM5/31/02

to

nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote in message news:<ad5mgt$9r9$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>...

> In article <5356fc2966826298acf...@mygate.mailgate.org>,
> Rudvar Alswill <rals...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >"Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
> >news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk
> >
> >> Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
> >> wrong.
> >
> >This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
> >this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
> >also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.
>
> Not a clue. Yes, I can believe that SNA was a major influence,
> but I know for certain the origin of some aspects that were not
> from SNA. And Honeywell could well have been anouther source.

Stallings says:"OSI design was the work largely of a group headed by
Mike Canepa and Charlie Bachman, both from Honeywell." They developed
a 7-layer model in 1977, taking IBM and Arpanet approaches into
consideration.

"The resulting OSI model is essentially the same as the DSA model
developed in 1977" (Stallings).

Rudvar Alswill

unread,

May 31, 2002, 3:08:40 PM5/31/02

to

"John S. Giltner, Jr." <gil...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3CF6E524...@earthlink.net>...

> Rudvar Alswill wrote:
> > "Nick Maclaren" <nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
> > news:acgmdd$7g5$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk
> >
> >
> >>Incidentally, people who say that OSI is a derivative of SNA are
> >>wrong.
> >
> >
> > This is according to William Stallings. Do you know anything about why
> > this Professor is so pro-IBM? I read elsewhere that the OSI model was
> > also inspired by Honeywells network architecture.

>
> Sorry to get into the middle of this, if I remember correctly IBM was
> working on SNA at the same time that OSI was being developled and had
> people that were part of the OSI working group, so did Honeywell.

Stallings claims that the OSI design was done by Honeywell engineers
Mike Canepa and Charlie Bachman. They were influenced by SNA and
Arpanet, both of which began work on architecture much earlier.
In 1977, they released a 7-layer model known to Honeywell as
'Distributed Systems Architecture' or DSA. This seven layer model was
adopted by ISO in March 1978.
Stallings states emphatically: "The resulting OSI Model is essentially

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Jun 1, 2002, 3:39:21 PM6/1/02

to

"Rudvar Alswill" <rals...@yahoo.com> writes:
> They were mainly cultural. Their philosophy, or lack of it, was perhaps
> their most fatal shortcoming.

a lot of the OSI model was driven by the telco, copper, PTT guys based
on their experience in end-to-end voice, pre-FEC, pre-fiber, pre-LAN,
non-computer, etc. these things had cumbersome bit error rates and
processing. i've heard some at&t computer guys use a term for the
phone people that was somewhat more descriptive.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/