From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 13:51:23 -0400
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>>>>> I would have attributed the success of Ethernet to price!
>>>>=20
>>>>=20
>>> You've got the causality wrong -- it wasn't cheap, way back when.
>>=20
>> I remember back in '93~94ish (I think) you could get a off brand 10BT
>> card for less than $100, as oppose to Token Ring which was $300~400.
>> I can't remember anything else that was cheaper back then. If you go
>> back before that, I don't know.
>=20
> Steve is talking mid-80s pricing, not mid-90s. By '93 or so, the fact
> that Ethernet was becoming ubiquitous had already forced the price =
down.Yup. 10 years earlier, a 3Com Ethernet card for a Vax cost about $1500, =
if memory serves.
That ball-park anyway -- ethernet for VMEbus or VERSAbus was in the same price
range.
Just a _few_ years later, ARCnet was one of several signficantly less expensive
alternatives for limited-size (both in number of hosts, and distance) LANS.