From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 13:51:23 -0400 Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>

On Apr 5, 2010, at 1:43 52PM, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

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I would have attributed the success of Ethernet to price! =20 =20 You've got the causality wrong -- it wasn't cheap, way back when. =20 I remember back in '93~94ish (I think) you could get a off brand 10BT card for less than $100, as oppose to Token Ring which was $300~400. I can't remember anything else that was cheaper back then. If you go back before that, I don't know. =20 Steve is talking mid-80s pricing, not mid-90s. By '93 or so, the fact

On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:29:20 EDT, Jay Nakamura said: that Ethernet was becoming ubiquitous had already forced the price = down.

Yup. 10 years earlier, a 3Com Ethernet card for a Vax cost about $1500, = if memory serves.

That ball-park anyway -- ethernet for VMEbus or VERSAbus was in the same price range. Just a _few_ years later, ARCnet was one of several signficantly less expensive alternatives for limited-size (both in number of hosts, and distance) LANS.