nanog mailing list archives
Re: IPv4 address length technical design
From: Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 15:21:54 -0700
On 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.
IEEE 802 was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers ever built. Internet was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers actively on the network. Obviously, over time, the latter would be a declining percentage of the former since the former is increasing and never decrements while the latter could (theoretically) have a growth rate on either side of zero and certainly has some decrements even if the increments exceed the decrements. Owen
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)