[ih] When did "32" bits for IP register as "not enough"?

[Dave Taht]

Grant Taylor <internet-history at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> On 2/13/19 6:11 PM, Dave Taht wrote:
>> Still what astonished me back then was that IPX/SPX wasn't successfully 
>> extended - it ruled the lan then outside of the few campuses that had 
>> tcp/ip. It fit into 64k.
>
> Were there no ISPs that offered IPX connectivity?  Was it really only 
> inside businesses / enterprises?

IPX/SPX bridging equipment was sold to businesses and enterprises. No
ISP-like intermediaries existed because there was no security boundry
enforcable, so it was not a good means to interconnect multiple
enterprises. However, individual frame relay connections for these were
common and I guess dealing with the Bell monopoly in those days was
somewhat similar to dealing with the cable monopoly today.

I do not recall how well these bridges worked. They were better
than nothing.

I'm trying to remember the date of my first novell smtp email gw...

Side note - when I first got ahold of my first pre-wifi cards in 1998,
they were only usable as an IPX/SPX bridge. We got tcp/ip running on
'em in about the middle of that year.

http://the-edge.blogspot.com/2010/10/who-invented-embedded-linux-based.html

>
> I guess I had assumed that there were.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯