Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 00:54:19 -0400
From: Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu
Message-ID:
<200107270454(_dot_)f6R4sJP28350(_at_)foo-bar-baz(_dot_)cc(_dot_)vt(_dot_)edu>
| First off, 32 was ...
| Secondly, at the time, a 9600 baud leased line ...
| Third, they were doing a new design, and the old one (NCP) had a 256
| host limit. I wasn't there, but I bet '4 billion will be PLENTY' ...
And of course, when IP was designed, 48 bit MAC addresses didn't exist
yet, so using them (even as any kind of hint as to how big addresses might
want to be) would have been an interesting achievement.
Does no-one else still recall the world before ARP, where MAC addresses
(ie: the old 16 bit things that 3Mbit ethernet used) were embedded in the
bottom 16 bits of your class B address (no-one had anything smaller than
that of course...)
kre