On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, John Ferriby wrote:
Look back. Routers have always lagged _WAY_ behind most other computer technology in terms of processor power, RAM, and general
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Gawd. This so true. Back in the moldy old days when DECnet was far more common, Digital brought out a dedicated router. VAXen were the common systems and host based routing of DECnet was very common. What hardware platform did they use? PDP 11/24. Early ciscos (pre AGS/AGS+/MGS/CGS/Trouter/IGS) were based on SUN hardware. Once cisco "customized" their Motorola-based platform the state-of- the-art slowed dramatically. SUN went the way of Sparc and cisco hung out with CISC/680x0 chips until the life cycle of the 680x0 was nearly dead.
It's even worse than that: as far as I know, they never used the 68060 or even 68040 CPUs. These puppies are a LOT faster than a 68030.