Reading Notes: Ethernet paper by Metcalfe and Boggs

The paper "Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks" by Metcalfe and Boggs is THE paper describing Ethernet technology. It appeared in the Communications of the ACM in 1976. Nowadays most wired LANs use Ethernet technology, so its importance is paramount. Below are some of my reading notes.

Synchronization on the Ethernet

In section 6 the author mentions slots as a time unit. In a contention interval the number of slots is calculated to determine how long the station will wait. Furthermore the author explains that the slots are synchronized by the tail of the preceding acquisition interval. In section 4.4 the author defines slots as the maximum time beween starting a transmission and detecting a collision, which is one end-to-end round trip delay. Thus the synchronization via slots depends on the specific physical properties of that network and one can regard slots as the basic time unit for synchronization.