Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> You don't use ISDN to network all the computers in the building 
> together. 

You don't use IP to network all the computers in your building together 
either. You have one wire from your computer to the switch. You then run 
wires between switches.

> You use ISDN to connect one computer in your building to one 
> computer in some other building. 

You're being kind of silly here, you know that?

I guess you can only connect a modem to one other computer, too, right?

When the other computer in some other building is connected to a worldwide 
network of switching fabric, what do you think happens?

> If it weren't for higher-level 
> protocols, you wouldn't be able to use this for anything other than 
> letting those two solitary nodes converse.

Higher-level protocols like dialing the phone?  You know, you can't even 
connect two ISDN machines together. You *need* a switch in between, even if 
the two machines are sitting in the same room.

>>> My point, which you seem determined to ignore, is that everybody who 
>>> designed a way to connect computers together designed it to only 
>>> handle a small handful of computers.
>>
>> Uh, no.  How many computers do you think ISDN can connect together?
> 
> 2, AFAIK.

So that explains, for example, BRI having two high-speed channels and 8 
source addresses on the D channel, right?

Tell me, how many people can you talk to on your phone?

>>> It seems to me that it wasn't until IP
>>> came along that you could connect very large collections of computers 
>>> together.
>>
>> You are mistaken.
> 
> Oh well. I guess that's the problem with being *alive*. :-(

It is, in part, part of the problem of people showing you where to read up 
on the subject and you saying "that would take too long."

>> People were connecting together large numbers of computers long before 
>> IP was around.
> 
> Interesting. As I say, all the technologies I've seen support only small 
> numbers of nodes.

TELEPHONES!  Jeez, dude. How many nodes do you think is typical for one 
switch in, say, downtown London?  Hint: I'd guess somewhere between 500,000 
and 1,000,000 subscribers per switch.

Interesting, perhaps, because you're not really thinking things through.

Given that IP isn't a physical networking technology, how do you think IP 
gets all over the world if there isn't any network technology capable of 
connecting to things all over the world?

>>> I'm fairly sure the telephone network connects vastly fewer nodes. 
>>
>> You are incorrect. Indeed, in 1999, there was more *fax* traffic than 
>> internet traffic, let alone voice and data. Ten years later, probably 
>> less so. But you're talking about "earlier" networks.
> 
> That makes no sense at all. There are people who don't even own a 
> telephone, but have multiple computers connected to the Internet. And 
> nobody uses fax anymore. What the hell...?

Clearly nobody uses fax any more.

> Now do you mean they didn't design IPv4 to be easily extensible, or they 
> didn't design IPv6 to be backwards-compatible?

The latter.

> And WTF happened to IPv5 anyway?

It was allocated to an experimental realtime protocol that didn't get deployed.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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