The original Ethernet specification was signed on this day in 1980. The fact that it has lasted 32 years is a statement of just how good the design was. Having lived through the Ethernet vs. Token Ring battle, and then the FDDI vs. Ethernet battle, the fact that Ethernet continued to evolve to take on higher speed and more convenient cabling while keeping compatible with drivers across a spectrum of Operating Systems is pretty amazing.
Trivia: I think that I've worked on all the different Ethernet media types: DIX coax (with vampire taps!), BNC coax, fiber optic, and twisted pair. Back in the 80's it didn't seem that the future would belong to Ethernet and TCP/IP, but both of those have scaled beyond what any of us expected. Yay, Ethernet!
I surplused a large box of token ring connecters and locking clips this week.
ReplyDelete"Ethernet will live forever, if only because whatever eventually replaces it will still be called 'ethernet'." -- Robert Metcalfe
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that this has _already_ happened twice. :)
Oh, God......'vampire taps'!
ReplyDeleteA Ham buddy of mine was telling me about this "killer deal" he got on a large quantity of RG-8 coax, aka "Thick Net".
A week later he called me to bring over my cable/tdr tester as he was having some "problems" with the supposedly new coax that he ran up the tower.
Yep, it had been used with vampire taps, and was now basically useless for RF use.