>> That ethernet article is *exactly* what I had in mind when I
>> wrote "single-sourced." It was so bad, so very very bad. I
>> think Bob Metcalf must have written the article himself
>> (inventor? of ethernet).
well, i wouldnt want you to lose sleep over this, so here is a second source:
"The 802.3 standard has an interesting history. The real beginning was the ALOHA system contructed to allow radio communications between machines scattered over the Hawaiian islands. Later, carrier sensing was added, and Xerox PARC built a 2.94 Mbps CSMA/CD system to connect over 100 personal workstations on a 1-km cable (Metcalfe and Briggs, 1976). This system was called Ethernet after the ...."
--- Computer Networks (3-rd Edition) -- Andrew Tannenbaum -- 1996 -- pp. 276
CSMA/CD refers to the extension 'invented' by Metcalfe et al to detect when other machines are broadcasting on a shared line, whereas the original Aloha system did not require a machine to listen for the presence of others talking, but only to listen for itself and whether its transmission was heard by the network.
So, given this new information, what exactly was your beef with the article?
By the way, Microsoft and other select companies are campaigning for a new I/O bus system called I2O. The problem is that they want to establish a consortium to which you must be a paying member before you can learn of the specification for its operation. This would make development of open OS's like Linux more difficult if board manufacturers were to sign on to th eproposed I2O consortium, since Internet wide hackers would no longer have the free and unhindered access to the bus protocols neccessary to easily write device drivers for the operating system.
(URL's on the I2O story available on request)
In that light, the story of the development of Ethernet, even as minimally 'sourced' as in the Times article today, makes interesting reading.
As Dick Gregory said a long time ago, <paraphrasing> if you are going to read something like the New York Times, make sure you read about 10 or 20 others establishment sources as well in order to get the real picture.
Finally, I do agree with you that more often than not, mainstream coverage of technology and science is pitiful.... i didnt share your feeling about the current article under discussion, however.
and this just in hot off the wires from Michael Perelman:
> I often look at Bob Metcalf's columns in Infoworld. He is always calling for the
> privatization and commodification of everything in the
> telecommunications world.
okay. he aint perfect (err, he's a die-hard capitalist). but thats what makes the current Times article interesting: it points out that in spite of leaving the specification open and public, Ethernet thrived and anybody with know-how can write code for it in a timely and efficient manner. This is in constrast to the games Microsoft and others play today ('MS' Java, Windows API, etc).
-- ____ Les Schaffer godzilla at netmeg.net ___| ------->> Engineering R&D <<-------- Theoretical & Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Westport, CT USA Center for Radiophysics & Space Research | http://www.designspring.com Cornell Univ. schaffer at tam.cornell.edu | les at designspring.com