mcvax

1 definition found

mcvax - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  mcvax
  
     mcvax.cwi.nl used to be the international backbone node of
     EUnet, the European Unix network.  It was located in
     Amsterdam, Netherlands and belonged to "Centrum voor Wiskunde
     en Informatica" (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science)
     which is an institute belonging to a foundation called
     "Mathematisch Centrum".  Since the first mcvax was on of the
     first VAXen in Europe and one of it's first uucp
     connections was to a machine called decvax it was quickly
     christened mcvax.  Some also say this was done to give Jim
     McKie a nice mail address: mcvax!mckie.  But this is certainly
     not true at all.  The function of EUnet international backbone
     moved to another VAX later but the name moved with it, because
     in those days of mainly uucp based mail and before widespread
     use of pathalias it was simply not feasible to rename the
     machine to "europa" as was suggested at one stage.
  
     Mcsun (or relay.eu.net or net.eu.relay in some parts of
     Europe) replaced the international backbone host of EUnet
     around 1990.  This machine was donated by Sun Microsystems
     owned by the European Unix Systems User Group (EUUG).  It
     was located about 5m from where mcvax used to be and operated
     by the same people.
  
     Mcvax has finally ceased to exist in the domain and uucp
     namespaces.  It still exists in the EARN/BITNET
     namespace.
  
     [Posting by Daniel Karrenberg <dfk@eu.net> to eunet.general].
  
     (1990-03-02)