< 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 packet s 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 Prime Computer 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)