Back in 80s I read a book ...
... that used an analogy of 2 neighbors communicating over a fence to explain how TCP works. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that book. Does anyone else remember that book or the analogy? Jonathan Black Executive Director, NANOG jblack@nanog.org | +1 613 612 2019 (mobile) | www.nanog.org ASN 19230
Did you mean this one? *Looking Over the Fence at Networks: A Neighbor’s View of Networking Research* (2001) by the National Research Council. On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 5:23 PM Jonathan Black via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
... that used an analogy of 2 neighbors communicating over a fence to explain how TCP works. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that book. Does anyone else remember that book or the analogy?
Jonathan Black Executive Director, NANOG jblack@nanog.org | +1 613 612 2019 (mobile) | www.nanog.org ASN 19230 _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
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-- *Ilissa Miller* *CEO, iMiller Public Relations <http://www.imillerpr.com>* *Host of the NEDAS Live! Podcast <https://www.nedas.com/nedas-live/>- Where Wireline & Wireless Meet* *Nomad Futurist Partner, Ambassador, Advocate - Donate here <https://nomadfuturist.org/partners/>* Subscribe <https://datacenterpost.com/subscribe/> or Contribute <https://datacenterpost.com/contribute/> to Data Center POST <http://www.datacenterpost.com> Email: ilissa@imillerpr.com Cell: 1.917.743.0931
I think this was Computer Networks by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. Pages are sequenced packets. Rip up the book, blow it in the breeze across the fence. Neighbor looks for pages upto some timeout, and then requests retransmission of missing pages -- is that what you recall? Sender has to have additional copies of the book to rip up for rexmit... that was left as an exercise for the reader :-) -- //Shrikumar PS: Prof Tanenbaum is also credit with other gems such as "do not underestimate the bandwidth of a horse carriage rattling down the carriage way", and "The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from" ---Original Message---
From: Ilissa Miller via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:25:59 -0400 To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Ilissa Miller <ilissa@imillerpr.com> Subject: Re: Back in 80s I read a book ...
Did you mean this one?
*Looking Over the Fence at Networks: A Neighbor???s View of Networking Research* (2001) by the National Research Council.
On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 5:23???PM Jonathan Black via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
... that used an analogy of 2 neighbors communicating over a fence to explain how TCP works. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that book. Does anyone else remember that book or the analogy?
Jonathan Black Executive Director, NANOG jblack@nanog.org | +1 613 612 2019 (mobile) | www.nanog.org ASN 19230 _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/UDP22TZF...
-- *Ilissa Miller* *CEO, iMiller Public Relations <http://www.imillerpr.com>* *Host of the NEDAS Live! Podcast <https://www.nedas.com/nedas-live/>- Where Wireline & Wireless Meet* *Nomad Futurist Partner, Ambassador, Advocate - Donate here <https://nomadfuturist.org/partners/>* Subscribe <https://datacenterpost.com/subscribe/> or Contribute <https://datacenterpost.com/contribute/> to Data Center POST <http://www.datacenterpost.com> Email: ilissa@imillerpr.com Cell: 1.917.743.0931 _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/QLG3H4PR...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet#In_media On 10/23/25 01:17, Shrikumar.H via NANOG wrote:
I think this was Computer Networks by Andrew S. Tanenbaum.
Pages are sequenced packets. Rip up the book, blow it in the breeze across the fence. Neighbor looks for pages upto some timeout, and then requests retransmission of missing pages -- is that what you recall?
Sender has to have additional copies of the book to rip up for rexmit... that was left as an exercise for the reader :-)
-- //Shrikumar
PS: Prof Tanenbaum is also credit with other gems such as "do not underestimate the bandwidth of a horse carriage rattling down the carriage way", and "The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from"
---Original Message---
From: Ilissa Miller via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:25:59 -0400 To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Ilissa Miller <ilissa@imillerpr.com> Subject: Re: Back in 80s I read a book ...
Did you mean this one?
*Looking Over the Fence at Networks: A Neighbor???s View of Networking Research* (2001) by the National Research Council.
On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 5:23???PM Jonathan Black via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
... that used an analogy of 2 neighbors communicating over a fence to explain how TCP works. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that book. Does anyone else remember that book or the analogy?
Jonathan Black Executive Director, NANOG jblack@nanog.org | +1 613 612 2019 (mobile) | www.nanog.org ASN 19230 _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/UDP22TZF...
-- *Ilissa Miller* *CEO, iMiller Public Relations <http://www.imillerpr.com>* *Host of the NEDAS Live! Podcast <https://www.nedas.com/nedas-live/>- Where Wireline & Wireless Meet* *Nomad Futurist Partner, Ambassador, Advocate - Donate here <https://nomadfuturist.org/partners/>* Subscribe <https://datacenterpost.com/subscribe/> or Contribute <https://datacenterpost.com/contribute/> to Data Center POST <http://www.datacenterpost.com> Email: ilissa@imillerpr.com Cell: 1.917.743.0931 _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/QLG3H4PR...
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participants (4)
-
Bryan Holloway -
Ilissa Miller -
Jonathan Black -
Shrikumar.H