The
Truth about PING
by Mark
Sedenquist
Just
about the time that one gets a handle on a working knowledge
of wireless communication jargon, (or in the case or the Road
Wirer, just enough to sound semi-intelligent at cocktail
parties), an e-mail message arrives to set the record straight.
In the matter of the source of "PING," which I suggested
in Road Wirer #10 could be defined
as a "Packet Internet Gopher," self- described "nerd"
Ray Tracy sent the
following on September 8th:
"
... I do enjoy your Road Wirer notes, and I'm still disappointed
at the paucity of "REAL" wireless Internet connections,
but anyway, I just had to write and set the story straight
about PING.
PING
actually is a meaningless shorthand word that originated
from submarine movies where the sonar sends out this beep
kind of signal, and we see the circle on the screen getting
bigger and hear the "ping" when it hits something
and produces an echo. In networking, we send a packet of
data to a node (computer) which unconditionally causes that
node to return the packet from whence it came. So in the
beginning, we nerds would describe this process by saying,
"PING Xxx to see if it is alive." (In fact, if
you PING from a Sun UNIX workstation, you would get the
response, "Xxx is alive," if it received the packet.)
Packet Internet Gopher as a definition didn't arrive on
the scene until almost the 90's after the term "Gopher"
and "Internet" came into use, and the windbags
needed (wanted) to sound professional. Now you know the
real story about PING..."
Up
until I learned about "Packet Internet Gopher,"
Ray's Sea Hunt definition is pretty close to what I
used in the early months of 1996 to describe the process of
sending data along the pathways of the Internet. Now I am
wondering about the rest of the current batch of definitions
I have been using. So, if you are aware of any more gems in
this regard, please let me know!
Hurricane
Floyd has made it difficult to reach the Internet this week,
so if this column is a little less long-winded than normal,
you have an even bigger blowhard to thank!
