[8571] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Mail relay for new separate Milnet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Tue Nov 23 09:27:52 1993
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 93 09:13:54 EST
From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: AMillar@mediavis.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
> The creation of MX records in the Internet DNS (domain name service) would
> allow Internet users to send mail to Milnet users without requiring hack
> address forms such as user%host@relay.mil.
These mail schemes entirely miss the point that the Internet is not
just about email. It's about all sorts of services and uses that
require exchanging packets. As I mentioned in my note to Mcnab, GE
needs IP connectivity to service medical equipment at military base
hospitals.
The various pieces of our CT and MRI scanners talk to each other
internally via TCP/IP. I architected their distributed OS so that
remote components could be swapped in and out, for diagnosis and so a
system could temporarily run with a "borrowed" remote component
subsystem. This is a service concept that illustrates the power of the
Internet ... but you need real connectivity.
(This concept was in the prototype a colleague [Bob Darrow] and I did
in 1987; the product version by the engineers at our medical business
would require a little reworking to take full advantage of being on the
Internet. However, just being able to get at the internals by TCP/IP
is still a big lever. When your "bus" talks packets instead of signal
volts ... the computer is the network :-)
--
Dick St.Peters
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
