KA9Q, was Re: Retrochallenge, 2005

[Tom Jennings]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Stan Barr wrote:

> I also ran KA9Q tcp/ip over packet radio on a 386 with MSDOS for quite a
> while (and I think I've still got the disks somewhere), does that count
> as "online"?

Damn right it does! We (the little garden) ran a whole internet on
40 MHz 386 boxes with KA9Q as router for four member/customers
(four serial cards and four modems, with ethernet to a 3COM
Brouter or in some cases another KA9Q box as uplink).  Around
1992. Real TCP/IP and minimal routing, plus local (keyboard/CRT)
support for client and servers.  Doesn't get more real than that!

These were in 100% uptime service too, not hobbiest
experimentation.  Reliability was OK, not acceptable by today's
standards but considering each cost 0.3 X of a commercial router,
we were not complaining. Uptime was fair, and quickly improving
when we got actual money and bought Livingstons.

Phil Karn deserves a lot of credit for that great software.