From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: brad@anduin.eldar.org (Brad Spencer) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2017 19:30:29 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 14, Issue 63 In-Reply-To: <20170116194627.0FF8B18C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> (jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu) Message-ID: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) writes: > > From: Larry McVoy > > > It is pretty stunning that the company that had the largest network in > > the world (the phone system of course) didn't get packet switching at > > all. > > Actually, it's quite logical - and in fact, the lack of 'getting it' about > packets follows directly from the former (their large existing circuit switch > network). > > This dates back to Baran (see his oral history: > > https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107101 > > pg. 19 and on), but it was still detectable almost two decades later. I was at AT&T much later then most who have commented, in 1992+ and I am pretty sure that a lot of people at that time who had been at AT&T a while STILL did not get packet networks. > For a variety of all-too-human reasons (of the flavour of 'we're the > networking experts, what do you know'; 'we know all about circuit networks, > this packet stuff is too different'; 'we don't want to obsolete our giant > investment', etc, etc), along with genuine concerns about some real issues of > packet switching (e.g. the congestion stuff, and how well the system handled > load and overload), packet switching just was a bridge too far from what they > already had. I can't fully explain it, but "a bridge too far" does describe it well. Everything had to be a circuit and it if wasn't, well, it was viewed with a great deal of suspicion. I worked with a lot of very smart and talented folks, but this was a real blind spot. > Think IBM and timesharing versus batch and mainframe versus small computers. > > Noel -- Brad Spencer - brad at anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS http://anduin.eldar.org - & - http://anduin.ipv6.eldar.org [IPv6 only]