[ih] early networking: "the solution"

[Scott Bradner]

> On Apr 20, 2024, at 8:11 PM, John Gilmore via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> In the early 70s, people were trying to figure out how to interwork multiple networks of different technologies. What was the solution that was arrived at that led to the current Internet?
>> I conjectured yesterday that the fundamental solution must have been in hand by the time Cerf and Kahn published their paper.
>> Are you conjecturing that the solution was gateways? and hence protocol translation at the gateways?
> 
> Maybe it's too obvious in retrospect.  But the "solution" that I see was
> that everyone had to move to using a protocol that was independent of
> their physical medium. 

and ATM was an example of the reverse - it was a protocol & a network - OK
as long as you did not build applications that knew they were running over ATM 
(or if ATM had been the last networking protocol)

Scott