[ih] OSI and alternate realiv

[Bob Purvy]

> Minitel had nothing to do with OSI.

except both were heavily backed by one or more PTTs

On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 4:22 PM John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:

> The PTTs were still stuck in the 20 year turnover of equipment and it was
> changing lot faster.
>
> Minitel had nothing to do with OSI. It was already in the works when it
> started. That was how the Session Layer got stolen and why there was TP0.
>
> What is even funnier was WAP was Videotex all over again and just as bad
> the second time around.
>
> On Mar 16, 2024, at 18:17, Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Even when they actually *had* the future up and running, they spurned it:
>
> Minitel. It caught on, the French loved it, and the PTT still failed to
> capitalize on it.
>
> With friends like PTTs, OSI didn't need any enemies.
>
> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 10:25 AM John Day via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> Yes, the PTTs had no idea what was coming.  As late as the late 1980s, I
>> had people telling me that the amount of data traffic would never exceed
>> the amount voice traffic. (!!) You could only wonder what they were
>> smoking!  ;-)
>>
>> Also, recent delving into the old papers makes it clear the degree to
>> which the PTTs thwarted the development of comparable networks in Europe,
>> e.g., EIN and EURONET.
>>
>> > On Mar 15, 2024, at 11:45, Daniele Bovio via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > David,
>> > One of the major problems at the time was that the PTTs planned to
>> charge
>> > the X.25 traffic by volume, and this would have slowed down the
>> development
>> > of applications enormously, as nobody could have afforded to send
>> images,
>> > sound and videos over the network at an affordable price.
>> > The other issue was that X.25 was limited to E1/DS1 (2Mb), and that was
>> a
>> > severe limitation.
>> > Of course prices would have decreased for packet switched networks as
>> well
>> > after the monopolies fell for good at the end of the 90, and probably
>> some
>> > other X. would have been invented to overcome the E1 limitation of
>> X.25, but
>> > I believe it would have been an uphill road all the way.
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > Daniele
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Internet-history [mailto:internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org]
>> On
>> > Behalf Of David Sitman via Internet-history
>> > Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 12:19 PM
>> > To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> > Subject: [ih] OSI and alternate reality
>> >
>> > In my talk at the EARN 40th Anniversary Conference in Athens in April I
>> > would like to speculate a bit about what the world would be like today
>> if
>> > OSI had won the "Protocol Wars".
>> > In 1986, it was a foregone conclusion that EARN would migrate to OSI in
>> the
>> > near future. However, when I began my international activity in 1991,
>> OSI
>> > was discussed as a promise that had gone largely unfulfilled and EARN
>> > members were actively supporting TCP/IP networks. It seemed obvious why
>> > TCP/IP had prevailed.
>> > Would we have seen the same rapid and universal adoption of computer
>> > networking with OSI? Could the Web have flourished? Would address space
>> and
>> > security issues be alleviated? Would "OSI on Everything" have become a
>> meme?
>> > I would be very grateful for any thoughts about this.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > David Sitman
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>> >
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>
>