*BSD News Article 40751


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From: ptomblin@compass.telemax.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: X on dial-in
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Sender: ptomblin@compass.telemax.com (Paul Tomblin)
Organization: Tomblin Computer Consulting, Akron, Ohio and Ottawa, Ontario
Message-ID: <D29HIA.F5y@compass.telemax.com>
References: <kiySJgG00iVCE3=0c=@andrew.cmu.edu> <3dqphu$bis@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <3euqjl$hcl@uwm.edu> <3f0qn9$qiu@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 22:08:33 GMT
Lines: 49

Too many newsgroups there guys, I've trimmed it.

In a previous article, porter@mu.enet.dec.com (dave porter) said:

>In article <3euqjl$hcl@uwm.edu>, wraith@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu (Robert Michael Gorichanaz) wrote:
>
>>		"what is ISDN?"
>
>Imaginary 
>Service,
>Delivered
>Nowhere
>
>
It Still Does Nothing.

Aka the technology whose time won't come until it is obsolete.

Seriously, ISDN stands for Integrated Services Digital Network, or something
like that.  It's a digital network provided by the telcos.  Sometimes.  If
it's available.

I used to work for the major networking company you've probably never heard
of: Gandalf.  We had some really cool networking stuff that used ISDN.

One of them was a network hub that could connect your central TCP/IP or IPX
lan to up to 64 other lans using ISDN.  It would set up and tear down calls as
needed, accept incoming calls, add extra bandwidth by opening up more ISDN
channels, etc.  This product, RLAN/ISDN was the major focus of our automated
testing when I was working on the automated testing product.

Another one, which may or may not be out yet, was a brouter to connect your
local lan to another one using ISDN.  Again, it could initiate calls, tear
down calls, call up another B or D channel if you needed the bandwidth
temporarily.  You could even attach a phone to one of the D channels.  If data
was flowing over that D channel when you picked up the phone, it would
automatically switch over (and not lose any data), and then go back to using
it when you hung up.  I think this one was called the 5250i, but to be quite
honest in a year working there I could never keep the model numbers straight.

Gandalf's proprietary data channel compression was supposed to be the best in
the industry.  We got pretty decent throughput because even our littlest
desk-top bridge used an Intel i960 chip.

-- 
Paul Tomblin, speaking from but not for telemax.com.
<a href=http://watt.oedison.com:8080/~tomblinp/>My home page</a>

"ICMP: The protocol that goes PING!" - Bill Garret.