nanog mailing list archives
Re: IPv4 address length technical design
From: George Herbert <george.herbert () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 12:31:48 -0700
On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Izaac <izaac () setec org> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 06:52:57PM +0200, Seth Mos wrote:"Pick a number between this and that." It's the 80's and you can still count the computers in the world. :)And yet, almost concurrently, IEEE 802 went with forty-eight bits. Go figure. I'm pretty sure the explanation you're looking for is: It was with the word size of the most popular minis and micros at the time.
The 48 bit MAC was 1980; notable that it was not primarily handled in software / CPUs (ethernet key functionality is in dedicated interface hardware, though the stack is MAC-aware obviously). CPU register bit length is less critical when you have a dedicated controller of arbitrary bittedness handling MACs. -- -george william herbert george.herbert () gmail com
Current thread:
- IPv4 address length technical design Chris Campbell (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Sadiq Saif (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Kevin Broderick (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Seth Mos (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Izaac (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design George Herbert (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design William Herrin (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Owen DeLong (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Marco Hogewoning (Oct 04)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design joel jaeggli (Oct 04)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Kevin Broderick (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Sadiq Saif (Oct 03)
- RE: IPv4 address length technical design Naslund, Steve (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Jeroen van Aart (Oct 29)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design George Herbert (Oct 03)
- RE: IPv4 address length technical design Tony Patti (Oct 03)
- Re: IPv4 address length technical design Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 03)