Fun_People Archive
5 Mar
Re: RFC 1149

Date: Fri,  5 Mar 93 00:28:01 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Re: RFC 1149

 From: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)

+---------------
| What kind of nonsense is this?  Don't you know that the medium described
| in RFC 1149 is almost obsolete (extinct?) now? We need higher performance
| communication media in this day and age.
+---------------

Now, now, don't you understand that RFC 1149 media are *standard*?
(...even if they are showing their age a bit...) And "standards"
are what drive "The International Market of the 90's".

+---------------
| Can you not generate RFCs for SneakerNet...
+---------------

Being studied by a sub-group of IEEE X3T9.5 and by ISO <something or other>,
but a basic disagreement about external pigments has arisen. Traditionalists
are holding out for white, while the radical upstarts [oops! did I show my
bias there?] have proposed not only black (and black/gray), but also a
disturbingly wide palette of *colors*! [Don't they know that will just
make it harder to achieve interoperability? Just look at the mess the Fibre
Channel people have gotten themselves into...]

+---------------
| SmokeSignalsNet
+---------------

This one is unfortunately stalled until the environmental pollution report
is in. Originally it was thought that the signalling system would only have
to have stack scrubbers in Class B environments (residential, hospital, etc.),
but recent studies have shown that even Class A applications may radiate
unacceptable levels of TPE (Toxic Pollutant Emmision).

+---------------
| AfricanDrumBeatsNet
+---------------

Also a problem here, too, with TPE -- this time, sound pollution. Several
European PTTs are concerned that inter-channel interference will be excessive
in their larger industrialized environments. [Not a problem in the original
application, nor in North America, where the original target market for
AfricanDrumBeatsNet has already switched to cellular phones and/or pagers.] 

+---------------
| Oh, and don't forget the message-in-a-bottle medium for WAN.
+---------------

While this media has the highest compatibility with Avian Carriers [slower,
perhaps, but a higher payload, so comparable], once again it is our European
friends who have discovered [or nit-picked, take your choice] significant
concerns, similar to their concerns about ATM -- namely, that in the absence
of a *mandatory* header checksum surrounding the addressing element, MIAB
packets may be undetectably mis-delivered. No amount of reassurance about
internet-level or transport-level addressing/checksumming seems to satisfy
them. [I suspect the *real* issue is that MIAB media are inherently better
suited to datagram operation than circuit-switched, and we know where the
battle lines lie *there*, don't we... :-{ ]

However, lest you think me all doom&gloom, there *are* two bright spots
on the horizon:

1. The newest thing from California, QMEQ and IMEQ (Quadrature- and
   Icosahedrally-Modulated EarthQuakes). The bit rate is low, but the
   signal-to-noise is totally awesome!

2. And don't rule out Avian Carriers yet. While the underlying physical
   media still possesses the traditional limitations, dramatic advances
   in payload encoding have brought Avian Carriers almost up to the
   standards of the previous champion carrier, SWFOMT (Station Wagon
   Full Of MagTapes). While users of SWFOMT seem locked into traditional
   PMDs, RFC 1149 has seen some experimental uses of a modified PMD 
   (DAT tapes) which are within the payload weight limit of larger
   Avian Carriers. ***RFC 1149 Lives!***


-Rob

p.s. I keep telling SWFOMT users I know that they too should consider
the DAT PMD option, but they keep telling me, "It's not standard yet.
We'll stick with 800bpi."

© 1993 Peter Langston