Chapter 13
Chapter 13: Networks, Gateways, and Routers ..........................................................
In This Chapter
Communicating in a global neighborhood
Putting on an Ethernet interface
Hiding behind a security firewall
T
here was a time when computers were islands. You would bring your
work to the machine (in a stack of punch cards, a roll of paper tape, or a
reel of magnetic tape) and feed in the data and instructions. After a few seconds,
a few minutes, or even a few hours of chugging and clanking and clicking, the
computer would spit out the answer: 12 or OK or a new roll of paper or tape
with the information sorted in a new order.The idea of one machine “talking” to another was about as remote as the con-
cept of a human having back-and-forth real-time interaction with a computer.How Many Computers Do We Really Need?..............................................
Way back in the ancient history of computers there was a fairly widespread
belief that the world only needed a handful of huge computers to control
things like the electrical power grid, the U.S. Census, and certain celebrities’
egos. In 1977 Ken Olsen, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC), told an industry gathering that he saw “no reason for any individual
to have a computer in his home.”I covered Olsen in the 1980s, and I sorta kinda know what he meant. At the
time Olsen made his pronouncement, DEC was the number-two computer
maker in the world, just behind IBM. DEC was renowned for making refrigerator-
sized components that could be linked together into tractor-trailer-sized
multiprocessors; these were the smallerversions — called minicomputers—