General Information:
"Nodes" (Routers) are MITRA-15 minicomputers with 16K
words. Communication lines are point-to-point PTT leased lines, ranging from
4.8 Kbs to 48 Kbs. Telephone lines and V24 interfaces, typically using 19.2 Kbs. base-band modulation on voice grade circuits connect all host computers.
[Pouzin
1974]
Specific components within Cigale provide basic services
such as echoing, statistics recording, debugging aids, node configuration,
artificial traffic and a clock. Other services are available with regard to a particular packet such as priority,
tracing, and routing.
User aids are available to help retrieve
information regarding their own traffic, for example, diagnostics and delays. A
particular service is ECHO, which returns packets to their source. In order to
provide for traffic measurement, a set of tools gathers statistics on real
traffic, generating artificial traffic, and measuring specific parameters.
Here is a list of applications that were in development in March 1975:
-
Processors available under time-sharing or remote batch include: APL,
SOCRATE (a general data base manager), MISTRAL (documentation and
information retrieval).
-
Application that allowed access to a chemical data bank (THERMODATA), a
circuit simulator, a computer simulator, an economic modelling system.
-
Specific application for social sciences, linguistics, faculty management,
CAI, a hemophiliac data bank.
-
Plans for pilot applications in the Customs Department and military
laboratories.
[Pouzin
1975]
Cigale was developed as a communications tool of a computer
network. Its design allows it to become
a component of larger systems and carry any data traffic in a transparent mode.
Except for timing parameters, Cigale does not impose any particular protocol.
It may include custom-tailored components to implement specific services.
Error and flow control are optional services- they can be either on or off. Therefore,
the only services available are basic services that implement fragmentation-reassembly
by the transport station. Error control on letters is an additional service; this
service can be either on or off. Error
control must be on in order to use flow control, thus if flow control is on, so
is error control. The reverse is not true (error control on while flow control is
off).
