Thank you for the kind comments. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. -- Tony Li
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A brief history of router architecture
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#22Thank you for the kind comments. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. -- Tony Li
The knowledge ingestion from reading your article felt like being plugged into the matrix. Great article!
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#23Thank you for the kind comments. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. -- Tony Li
> In the beginning, routers were simply generic computers, with Network Interface Cards (NICs) attached to a bus. I'm a total network noob, but I do want to know more about how they work. Your article could help me, I think. But this statement already puts me off: what is a bus? I just can't picture what that's supposed to mean. Sorry if that's a stupid question. Maybe the article is just not for me and I need some p…
You might find these pages interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_(computing)
It’s a physical data highway that allows devices to communicate with each other.
Early routers were ‘normal’ computers with lots of network cards plugged into a bus. Data arrived on one card, and was routed to another by the operating system.
Your home router is still a computer, but miniaturises everything to a much simpler circuit board with the network connectors directly soldered on.
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the beginning, routers were simply generic computers, with Network Interface Cards (NICs) attached to a bus. I'm a total network noob, but I do want to know more about how they work. Your article could help me, I think. But this statement already puts me off: what is a bus? I just can't picture what that's supposed to mean. Sorry if that's a stupid question. Maybe the article is just not for me and I need some p…
A bus is something computers and peripherals comunicate on. Think PCI, PCIexpress, USB
Well technically a bus is a group of wires shared amongst several devices. Each device has to wait its turn to talk/listen.
PCI, AGP, ISA, IDE are busses.
PCI express, USB, SATA are not busses but rather point-to-point protocols.
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#25Almost 25 years ago I had the brief pleasure of working for BBN Technologies. On one memorable occasion I went to their warehouse to borrow a large external hard drive and spotted at least one IMP (effectively a router for early ARPANET).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Message_Processor
I hope some of that warehouse ended up in a museum at some point.
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#26This is why I stay on HN. This is such a niche, interesting subject that I never would have found otherwise. I’ve been looking for networking resource that go in depth on things like this, rather than just configuring and setting up equipment. Does anyone know anything like this? I’m especially interested in ones for telecommunications networking technology.
Some pointers that might be useful:
https://github.com/srsLTE/srsLTE
https://www.gnuradio.org/grcon/grcon17/presentations/open_fi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk_(PBX)
Don’t be afraid to study the source code if you’re curious about the inner workings of a system. Best of luck!
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#27But is this within or external to the router. After SNA and token ring, the Ethernet-cum-internet decentralised not just the net but also the router, switch, cable up to internet (local : ospf and ...). Not sure why it seems to talk about the router. Even a small floor network does not run on one router. But panels, switches, routers, ups ... abd that is in 1990s to now. The internal architecture ... is that so impor…
Everything that I talk about is internal to the router. Some of us think that the architecture of big routers is plenty important. It's those routers that hold up the backbone of the Internet and a whole lot of other places. Yes, you can build distributed routers. The supernode that I discuss is one such example. But that doesn't mean that you want to build it with a bunch of tiny home routers that you bought off the…
I don’t understand all that much about the finder details of high-capacity networking, but it sure is a fascinating and important concept! The sheer volume of packets that are sent every day over the world is nothing but amazing.
Welcome to Hacker News. Glad to see you here!
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#28Thank you for the kind comments. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. -- Tony Li
Tony,
Great article, thanks for taking the time to put it together. Hope to find more articles like this from you in the near future :)
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bus is something computers and peripherals comunicate on. Think PCI, PCIexpress, USB
Well technically a bus is a group of wires shared amongst several devices. Each device has to wait its turn to talk/listen. PCI, AGP, ISA, IDE are busses. PCI express, USB, SATA are not busses but rather point-to-point protocols.
The usage of the term has changed a bit. From WP:
"Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical bus. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of USB. "
(The B in USB stands for Bus)
Re: A brief history of router architecture
#30Cool seeing this post tonight. I just finished implementing a router for my networks class like 30 minutes ago. https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/wi21/cse123-a/project.html We use this book and its amazing: https://book.systemsapproach.org/index.html Section 3.5 covers router implementation details.
THANK YOU for the link to book.systemsapproach.org! My "library" has been missing a resource like this. :)