[HECnet] DECnet et al

[Bob Armstrong]

Yes.   But any L1 routers need help from L2 routers to get out of area.

  Yeah, but given that the routers aren't actually needed for two nodes to
talk (under HECnet circumstances) then we don't actually need the routing
nodes at all.   Sounds like their only real use is to be able to do a "SHOW
NETWORK/OLD" and see an nice list of active nodes (which is undeniably
neat)...

  So a node configured as an end node in area 'n' can actually communicate
directly, over Ethernet, with another end node in area 'm'?   But a L1
routing node in area 'n', in the same physical network topology, would
actually relay its packets for a node in area 'm' via an L2 router?   And
does this actually take two L2 routers to hand off the packets, one for area
'n' and one for 'm'? 

So (again, in the HECnet situation only) having an L1 router is a real
penalty - where as two end nodes could talk directly, just changing the same
machines to L1 routers would require the same traffic to be handled by two
intermediate nodes.

  Or an I confused?   That's a bit bizarre.

Bob