CERNET screen display

CERNET, beginning in 1976, offered a fast file transfer service between a number of mainframes and minicomputers via 2Mbit/s serial lines using packet switching in a network of gateway nodes. At the end of its ten year life CERNET supported 100 systems, including its own version of a LAN bridge, connecting some of CERN's first Ethernets. However, even though architecturally CERNET resembled ARPAnet, all its protocols had been developed independently. It was therefore doomed, though this was of course unknown at the beginning.