The 1982 George Forsythe Memorial Lectures
by Jerome H. Saltzer
Stanford University Computer Science Department

Lecture #3, Thursday, January 29, 1982, at 4:15 p.m., in Jordan 040

Intended audience:  Computer science operating system and network specialists.

Title: HERETICAL IDEAS ABOUT LOCAL NETWORKS

This lecture will explore in technical depth two non-conventional
ideas about local networks. The first is that there
are local network technologies other than the Xerox Ethernet
that are worth exploring. The Ethernet will be compared with one
alternative technology, the ring of active repeaters, on a variety of
operational and subtle technical grounds, on each of which the
ring is found to possess important or interesting advantages.

The second non-conventional idea is that
network interconnection may be done better with relatively
static, source-supplied routing than with dynamically deduced
hop-by-hop routing. The primary advantage
of source routing is simplicity of implementation of the gateways
that interconnect subnetworks, with consequent improvement in
cost, maintenance effort, recovery time, ease of trouble isolation, and
overall management effort.