NSFnet router performance (was Re: IRC Net Bandwidth)

[Jeffrey d'Arcy]

torek at elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes:
>At the time the NSS routers peaked out at not much
>over 300 packets per second, and certainly under 1000 packets per second.
> [...]
>There was also mention of someone `getting the packet
>forwarding cost down to about 14,000 instructions' (these being on IBM
>ROMPs)---apparently this was an improvement that was not yet in place.

Ugh!  I knew the routers were inefficient, but this level of nonperformance
defies comprehension.  Sounds like time for an upgrade; they could probably
get better performance with a Mac, and they could draw pretty pictures with
it too.