Local Area Transport

Local Area Transport (LAT)[1][2] is a non-routable (data link layer) networking technology developed by Digital Equipment Corporation[3] to provide connection between the DECserver terminal servers and Digital's VAX and Alpha and MIPS host computers via Ethernet, giving communication between those hosts and serial devices such as video terminals and printers. The protocol itself was designed in such a manner as to maximize packet efficiency over Ethernet by bundling multiple characters from multiple ports into a single packet for Ethernet transport.[4]

One LAT strength was efficiently handling time-sensitive data transmission.[1][5] Over time, other host implementations of the LAT protocol appeared allowing communications to a wide range of Unix and other non-Digital operating systems using the LAT protocol.

  1. ^ a b Len Grzanka (April 2, 1990). "LAT packets cross Interlink bridge first". Digital News. pp. 15, 61.
  2. ^ "Local Area Transport (LAT) Specification" (PDF).
  3. ^ Digital Equipment Corporation: VAX/VMS LAT control program reference manual, 1984.
  4. ^ US 4823122, Mann, Bruce & Duffy, Darrell, "Local area network for digital data processing system", published 1989-04-18, assigned to Digital Equipment Corporation 
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Datability.DigiNews89 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).