Researches in network developement of JUNET

JUNET was developed in order to provide a testing environment for studies of computer networking and distributed processing by connecting a large number of computers and by providing actual services for the users. Research interests in development of the network have been focused on resource name managing, Japanese character handling and communication technologies. For the name managements, the hierarchical domain concept is employed to construct a name space for the network, and a mechanism for text message exchange is implemented using the concept. An environment for text message exchange using Japanese characters is achieved as results of general discussions to handle 16-bit Kanji codes in computers. Efficient data transmissions with the high speed modems are achieved by a new UUCP protocol and the dial-up IP link mechanism developed with atty driver which provides host-to-modem flow control mechanism. As the result of researches described above, JUNET currently connects various types of organizations relating computer science which are 87 organizations with more than 250 computers in number. It connects universities and major research laboratories in Japan, and the protocols currently used are TCP/IP over leased lines as well as dial-up lines, and UUCP over dial-up lines. The services such as electronic mail and network news have been provided since the network was started, and special technologies for Japanese character handling, name servers, and multimedia mail supports have been developed. In this paper, the current status of JUNET and its research results in development of the network are described.