> From: Steven Bellovin <s...@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.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: > > > On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:29:20 EDT, Jay Nakamura said: > >>>> 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 > > 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.
