At 17:53 15/02/01 -0500, Brent Sweeny wrote:
On Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 02:27:53PM -0800, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Thu, 15 February 2001, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
An extra 10 if you have any printed manuals from that far back!
Back then, ALL the manuals were printed. None of this funky CDROM or download the page from the Cisco web site when your cisco router isn't routing and you can't get to the cisco web site.
And my favorite. You didn't have to pass a test to buy stuff directly from Cisco. I got my first IGS-R for 50% off because Cisco was competing against Proteon, and the Cisco sales person was happy to sell me one.
I remember way back then, when we were evaluating whether to buy Proteon or Cisco, scanning the hosts table (which still listed all the routers in the internet then, along with what KIND they were) to see what Cisco's market penetration was. it was growing fast enough that we thought they might stay in business. ;) it's still a good idea for cisco to remember proteon (and what they did wrong), though virtually no one from cisco today has ever heard of proteon, too bad--the lessons are still relevant, perhaps more than ever.
and the entire manual set (hardware--all 3 models of routers--and software) all fit into one looseleaf manual. i still have mine from 6.x and 7.x, though i can't find earlier, darn.
I remember when I did the first router scorecard. Here is an excerpt: Comparison of Multiprotocol Routers Henry Nussbacher November 1990 Version 1.7 +--------------+--------------+---------------+ Multiprotocol | cisco AGS+ | Wellfleet LN | Proteon p4200 | Router | Rel. 8.1(14) | Rel. 5.40 | Rel. 8.3 | +--------------+--------------+---------------+ 1. General | | | | - # of slots | 9 | 4 | 7 | - Processor | 30Mhz 68020 | 32MHz 68030 | ??Mhz 68020 | - Memory | 4Mbyte | 4Mbyte | 2Mbyte | - Updates via | ROM, TFTP | diskette,TFTP| diskette,TFTP | - Speed of bus | 530Mb/sec (a)| 320Mb/sec | 160Mb/sec | Trivia question: name the mailing list used at the time for each of these platforms. You need to know all 3 in order to win acclaim and fortune :-) -Hank
Brent Sweeny, Indiana University