BITNET

networking /bit'net/ (Because It's Time NETwork) An academic

and research computer network connecting approximately 2500

computers. BITNET provides interactive, electronic mail and

file transfer services, using a store and forward

protocol, based on IBM Network Job Entry protocols.

Bitnet-II encapsulates the Bitnet protocol within IP

packets and depends on the Internet to route them. BITNET

traffic and Internet traffic are exchanged via several

gateway hosts.

BITNET is now operated by CREN.

BITNET is everybody's least favourite piece of the network.

The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs,

VAXen (with lobotomised communications hardware), and PrimeComputer supermini computers. They communicate using

80-character EBCDIC card images (see eighty-column mind);

thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of

third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/RFC 822

world with annoying regularity. BITNET is also notorious as

the apparent home of BIFF.

[Jargon File]

(2002-09-02)