Jamie Baddeley wrote:

On Sun, 2006-06-04 at 11:41 +0800, Arron Scott (ascott) wrote:

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Are you sure about that?

The 9k6 leased line was run on a pair of Paradyne error correcting leased line Async Modems, which John Houlker smuggled into New Zealand stating it was a computer, off the top of my head. The Paradynes were ditched personally by me, after I found them hidden under the raised flooring in the Comms room at the back of the Computer Room. They were sitting beside the old router, the name of which I can't remember anymore, which was a PC chassis, before that was replaced by the Cisco MGS which ran the internet from when it was upgraded to the 64k Synchronous Serial link.

so, one of the 5 of these: http://www.knossos.net.nz/don/wn1.html

Are we talking 5 of those plus enough spare parts to build another one :) http://www.lindsay.geek.nz/images/Cisco_AGS_Parts/ I found these hidden away - obviously virgins AFAIK they were purchased for upgrade that never happened. All happened before I started at Uni, I was there at the tail end of the NZIX days when the last handfull of customers pulled out and I pulled out the 2 Cisco Catalyst 2926s.

Don Stokes wrote:

Lindsay Druett wrote:

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Are we talking 5 of those plus enough spare parts to build another one :) http://www.lindsay.geek.nz/images/Cisco_AGS_Parts/

Multibus-Cbus bridge cards for an AGS+, and microcode roms for same. The AGS+ chassis came with a 5-slot Cbus backplane -- that's the connector on the right (component side up), but by default it wasn't connected to anything. You needed those cards to talk to it, as the CPU only talked via the Multibus backplane (which was the only backplane you got on an AGS). You could then add 6-port Ethernet or FDDI cards. Cbus cards could transfer data between them along the Cbus, taking load off the (relatively slow) Multibus.

I've encountered the old Cisco AGS+ in the collection of UoWs of old equipment when I worked there. http://www.lindsay.geek.nz/images/Cisco_AGS/ I wasn't there at the time when it happened, but it is the only equipment I found that closely matches the description. Maybe it was a similar deal to VUW's three AGSs.

On Sunday 04 June 2006 23:38, Don Stokes wrote:

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so, one of the 5 of these: http://www.knossos.net.nz/don/wn1.html

No, not one of those. The MGS is about half the size of the AGS, takes four cards including the CPU and NVR cards, so you could get two line cards in for a maximum of 8 ports. The AGS has nine slots, giving you 28 holes if you held your mouth right. (Note that VUW ordered 5 MGSes, but three arrived as AGSes.)

Just to clarify here: The 5 VUW boxes were for Victoria's internal network and predated Kawaihiko's use of ciscos.

The PACCOM link went in late '89, IIRC, but it was a wee while before solid non-experimental comms made it to VUW

Are you saying our PC based 4.8K/9.6K links via the DSIR's terminal network were experimental or not solid or are you refering to the earlier attempts to do something with DECnet. :-) cheers mark

Don Stokes wrote:

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Are you saying our PC based 4.8K/9.6K links via the DSIR's terminal network were experimental or not solid or are you refering to the earlier attempts to do something with DECnet. :-)

Well, I wasn't there, but my understanding of PC-router SLIP comms over async ports on the DSIR network was that it was, uh, not exactly industrial grade. That's not the same as "didn't work".

I was there and I think it was industrial grade enough for us to discard the other methods of linking to the world until the Kawaihiko folks got their act together to buy the Ciscos and lease Frame Relay from Telecom. The DSIR folks had to make changes to the protocols they ran on their network to allow us to transmit Ctrl-P characters (as I recall) as they were used to terminate 'terminal sessions'. I believe that was Tony van der Peet who did that. And this wasn't just VUW doing this. Ken Spagnolo at Massey was persuade to join the fun and Massey connected to VUW and on to Waikato. I'd argue that the other universities were catalysed into action because of these events. We would still have build a university network but it would have taken much longer. Perhaps we need a similar event to give the REANNZ folk a kick up the backside!

Nice flame bait. Rather than biting by purely pulling out the 'ignorant' card, I'll let InternetNZ do it instead. =) http://www.internetnz.net.nz/about/people/fellows/ "InternetNZ decided in 1998 that it wished to honour the pioneers of the Internet in New Zealand. Fellowships were established so that the Society could "recognise members of the Internet industry who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the Internet in New Zealand or the Society" Lets look at these people and where their past associations have been (Data from the page in question, so I appologise if I'm missing anything) * Joe Abley Clear and basically everywhere else. * Mark Davies VUW * Roger Hicks ISOCNZ * Jim Higgins ISOCNZ * Andy Linton VUW * Nevil Brownlee Auckland Uni * Rex Croft Waikato Uni * Dr John H Hine VUW * John Houlker Arranged link from Hawaii to Waikato Uni * Neil James Otago Uni * Dr Frank March VUW * Richard Naylor WCC - Althought the link in question was to VUW * Donald Neal Waikato * John Vorstermans Actrix (Who were colocated at VUW for a time in the early 90's) So out of the 14 names on that list, 9 work of have worked at a NZ University while they were being 'Pioneers of the NZ Internet'. Of the others, the Universities played a significant role. It's my opinion that the other players you're talking about (The Telecoms, The TelstraClears, and probably the IHUGS) did nothing more than provide what had already been developed on a larger scale for less money. There is a large amount of research and work being done at the universities on "The Next Big Thing"(tm). Maybe you just havn't seen it because it's hidden in journal articles and your ISP can't sell it at a profit yet. In short... "Other than about 20 guys between Auckland, VUW and Waikato the rest of the NZ Universities have less impact on the NZ Internet than The Linux User's groups" Just shows a lack of understanding about where the innovation has come from in the past, nor where it has the potential to come from in the future. If you meant that they use about the same amount of traffic as the Linux Users group, then you may have a point =) Dean Simon Lyall wrote:

On Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Andy Linton wrote:

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Perhaps we need a similar event to give the REANNZ folk a kick up the backside!

The Universities did nothing in the Internet area for 10 years except play off Telecom and Telstra every couple of years for a connection.

About 3 years ago they had the bright idea to go for direct government funding of their Internet by sprouting a few buzzwords which will probably get their connections up to the speed of ADSL2 by the time half the country has it at home.

Other than about 20 guys between Auckland, VUW and Waikato the rest of the NZ Universities have less impact on the NZ Internet than The Linux User's groups [1].

[1] - To pick somebody at random.

Please note that I am not saying that plenty of research and work isn't done at Universities on things that are 5 or 15 years away. However I believe that NZ Universities have chosen to specialize in other areas (bio science mostly) and thus are punching below their weight in the Internet, IT and related fields. Which is a shame because before the mid-90s they *were* relatively advanced.

I would guess that we are pretty useless given that all we have done are trivial things such as: - consulting to tier 1 and tier 2 telcos - been instrumental in new protocol work such as DCCP - talking to some of the largest CGI players - working with tier 1 ISPs and advising them - in the USA - have companies spun off that are fastest growing in measurement technology and world leading - have world leading, open source work - networked some of the most remote parts of New Zealand - part of NLANR work and that's just WAND. Our other useless people do things like: - advise UN on digital libraries - help Google plan major projects - are leading experts in ACM/IEEE - ranked #1 in PBRF Oh well we will just carry on doing irrelevant and useless work and we'll also carry on our work with bioscience as well but I can't see that having any future either. Ian -- Ian McDonald Web: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4 Blog: http://imcdnzl.blogspot.com WAND Network Research Group Department of Computer Science University of Waikato New Zealand

Where to start... Simon Lyall wrote:

I fully acknowledge the huge contribution made by the Universities in getting the Internet started in New Zealand etc. However following the establishment of the commercial Internet providers from the mid 1990s (and most of those InternetNZ Fellows moving to the commercial sector) the Universities have had little real involvement in the New Zealand Internet for a good 10 years.

The New Zealand Internet doesn't start and stop with where you can buy your home dialup or broadband connection. For the most part Universities don't care about any of that. To expect universities to have had a significant involvement in making your Internet cheaper or faster is to miss where their potential lies. The Universities didn't build that first link to Hawaii so that hundreds of NZ'ers could all surf pr0n and play WOW at home. They did it because it was aligned to where their needs, research and strategic directions were. They didn't ask "How much money could this make" nor did they ask "How popular do you think this will be". In fact I can remember a certain network administrator actively discouraging more people from connecting to the Internet. The advances that academia provide are never as clear cut as 'cheaper/faster/more pr0n', they are almost always incremental improvements in lateral directions whose benefit is almost never realised until years later. For example. Here are some research areas from some of the NZ Universities. They are all current areas of research or published papers. See if you can spot how they have enhanced your Internet today or will in the future. Auckland - http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/publications/ "Method of introducing digital signature into software" "Experiences Generating Web-based User Interfaces for Diagramming Tools "Tamper-proofing watermarked computer programs" "Improving QoS for Peer-to-Peer Applications through Adaptation" "Three Integration Methods for a Component-based NetPay Vendor System" Waikato - http://wand.cs.waikato.ac.nz/projectDetail.php?id=1 "Topology Management in Rooftop Wireless Networks" "Quality of Service for Wireless Links" "Fx/NGI Network" "DAG Passive Measurement of Network links" Massey - http://www-ist.massey.ac.nz/Projects/projects.asp?ID=15 "Patterns for evaluation of multimedia systems on the web" "DIY Supercomputer: Infrastructure and Programming" "TDDP (Telephone directory download protocol)" "The $10 computer" http://www.massey.ac.nz/~odiegel/smarthouse/index.html VUW - http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/research/dsrg/ "Using Honeynets for Intrusion Protection Systems" "Resource management in wireless networks" "Simulation of Next Generation Networks" "Internet Background Radiation" "Secure Resource Auctions" "Next Generation Internet" "Dependability - distributed exception handling for webservices" Canterbury - http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/RG/i-net_security/papers.htm http://www.elec.canterbury.ac.nz/research/Networking/publications.shtml "A Taxonomy of Network and Computer Attacks Computers and Security" "An Analysis of the Tools used for the Generation and Prevention of Spam, Computers and Security" "Reactive Firewalls - A New Technique" "Real-time Carrier Network Traffic Measurement, Visualisation and Topology Modelling" "Improved Congestion Control with Hybrid RED" "FreezeTCP with Timestamps for Fast Packet Loss Recovery after Disconnections" Otago - http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/research/systems/projects.html "Power Conservation in Network Devices" "CLOSE - CLuster Operating System & Environment" "Embedded Systems - integration of GPS and inertia measurement to track moving objects like mountain bikes" These are just a few examples of the current areas of research that NZ Universities are working on. There is more than enough there for ANY Network admin at an ISP to find something that they can use to enhance the NZ Internet. Network providers in NZ seem only interested in how to make things faster and cheaper. You should all take a few things from that list and look how to make the Internet SMARTER!

Issues of Policy and Society have been taken over by InternetNZ [1] and the infrastructure has degraded to a point where a couple of years ago there was a speaker at NZNOG from Waikato University who was paying $2/Megabyte for traffic for his videoconferencing [2] work.

Issues of Policy and Society were never the domain of the Universities anyway.

Read Andy's post that I was following up to about how a push from VUW, Massey and Waikato got the others into building a National network and how perhaps "we need a similar event to give the REANNZ folk a kick up the backside!". He obviously feels something is lacking there.

Yes - The Universities have always been in a position where they were working on improving networking. The problem has been that the rest of the industry has spent far too long with it's head shoved up its pockets. Finally the Universities have had to go out and redesign what they need because shock horror, a $49 per month adsl connection doesn't suit them. If you're going to blame anyone for sitting on their hands for 10 years, blame the ISPs. At least the Universities have been doing something. The ISPs have just been doing the minimum to stop their customers from leaving while lining their pockets.

My argument is that the Internet was off the Universities' radar for 10 years and the fact that REANNZ is getting built now rather than 10 years ago indicates more a wish to fill the "Connected to high speed academic Network" tick box on the prospectus rather than any real interest.

Nope - not at all. Thats never been the case. Look at the ongoing work mentioned above. Waikato for example has just chosen to use the Internet in the US for it's AMP work in collaboration with NLANR. The Internet in NZ hasn't kept pace with where the Universities have been going. Don't blame them if the networks you've built are not state of the art.

Please note that I am not saying that plenty of research and work isn't done at Universities on things that are 5 or 15 years away. However I believe that NZ Universities have chosen to specialize in other areas (bio science mostly) and thus are punching below their weight in the Internet, IT and related fields. Which is a shame because before the mid-90s they *were* relatively advanced.

You only need to look at the previous list to see that they are still holding their own when it comes to Internet and IT. The truth of the matter is that they don't come and advertise it to your door with people in a blue van with names like Battle Monkey. If you'd bothered to look, like I just did, you'll see that they are doing plenty of research in fields that we could all benefit from.

[1] - Look at it this way, when the government talks about a change to social welfare spending you hear a string of academics providing opinion and background on it. How many have you heard talking about local loop unbundling and similar topics this year?

Thats the media. People understand what a change in social welfare spending means and therefore it makes a good news spot. The general public has no idea what LLU means so the media never bothered to ask for any academic opinion. I've asked around and there is plenty of academic opinion on this. Don't confuse the biased coverage by the media with a lack of expertise in a field. In short. If you are an ISP/NSP/ASP/etc and you didn't think that the universities were doing anything which you could benefit from, then think again. Have a look at the list I included. Go to the links what I pasted, and see if you can find something that you are interested in. Mail the author or department head and have a chat. For the most part these people are passionate about their work and more than happy to get involved and help you out. Universities have been active in the area for the last 10, 15 even 20 years, it's just that the majority of people have spent that time asking "How will it make my home Internet cheaper?". It hardly ever will If you want to start asking... "How will it make my home Internet BETTER?" Then the Universities have PLENTY of answers for you. Oh and Beer. I don't think anyone will argue that Universities have been studying Beer for the last 10 years, and therefore this post is on topic. =P Dean

Dean Pemberton wrote:

The Universities didn't build that first link to Hawaii so that hundreds of NZ'ers could all surf pr0n and play WOW at home. They did it because it was aligned to where their needs, research and strategic directions were. They didn't ask "How much money could this make" nor did they ask "How popular do you think this will be". In fact I can remember a certain network administrator actively discouraging more people from connecting to the Internet.

There were mixed views on where the Universities should be in terms of providing Internet services to the great unwashed. On the one hand, promoting and expanding the Internet outside the Universities' own needs was a way of getting a better Internet for themselves; on the other, doing so was a heck of a long way from what the Universities' IT departments were funded for. In the mid 90s, the Universities were no longer the only game in town, and by the late 90s, they had largely shed their third party responsibilities. Only VUW's Internet services operation had enough momentum to keep going as a competitive commercial ISP, having subsumed Auckland University's service. Even VUW had spun off NetLink, and the University itself was simply NetLink's biggest customer. Also, most of the Universities' IT operations went through some fairly brutal restructuring during that mid-90s timeframe. Relatively few of the people who made the Internet happen in the late 80s and early 90s are still there. At VUW, almost the entire systems and networks team (and a number of others) left as a result of the "restructuring" of ITS in '96-'97, leaving the new regime more or less starting from scratch. Academic use of and research into the Internet has ticked along through all this. It's just that what the Universities were doing in terms of actually building the Internet in the late 80s and early 90s was a lot more visible than academics doing research and producing papers. Buying a bunch of data circuits from a telecommunications monopoly that just plain didn't get it, while an interesting exercise in economics, hardly qualified as research. -- don