[ih] The netmask

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)]

Michael Grant:

> While the RFC refers to bit-masks, operationally people realized
> that since CIDR bit-masks were always all ones from the left and
> all zeros from the right, they could be equivalently represented
> by an integer count of one bits, usually following a "/" character.
> So then we ended up with tables [...]

My admittedly broken memory recalls a period where the netmask did
not have to be contiguous bits, thus 255.255.192.192 was a valid
mask.  This was then changed to add the restriction the mask bits
had to be contiguous, after which the /nn representation became
viable.  If this is true, it explains why we have the dotted quad
metmask format.

So, am I hallucinating this?

--lyndon