🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <239@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <3...@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> jo...@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:
>
>| I think there was once a system called CHAOS (an operating system, judging
>| by the trailing OS), and of course, this joke alludes more literally to the
>| role of programmers in creating chaos.
>
>CHAOS is an OS for a LISP environment, among other things.

Nope.  Chaosnet was the original *networking* protocol for the MIT
Lisp Machines, later used by Symbolics, LMI and TI.  It included both
the networking hardware and the communication protocol which ran on
it.  The Chaos hardware, which had a maximum throughput of 6 megabits
per second, was replaced by Ethernet by the time Lisp Machines left
MIT.  The Chaosnet software protocols are, as far as I know, still the
default for Symbolics machines.  (IP-TCP and Decnet are available at
extra cost.)

BTW, the Chaosnet name referred to the fact that there was no master/
slave relationship among the hosts in the network, unlike IBM's SNA.
Since there was no hierarchy and everybody was free to try to initiate
communication whenever they wanted, the name Chaosnet seemed awfully
appropriate.



-- 
Hank Shiffman                                     (415) 336-4658
Marketing Technical Specialist
Software Engineering Technologies               ...!sun!shiffman
Sun Microsystems, Inc.                          shif...@Sun.com

Zippy sez:
  UH-OH!!  I put on ``GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's''
 by mistake!!!