Given the title and copyright date of this book, one would expect the chapter on local area networks to carry considerable weight. Without dwelling on its details, consider these general observations:

• The chapter was evidently written in 1981 or early 1982, and refers to facilities “expected to be available in 1982 or 1983.” Numerous fundamental changes in the industry have occurred since then, notably IBM’s local network products and L.U. 6.2; a proliferation of inexpensive network offerings; and a shift in the intent of most local networks, from supporting remote terminals to linking personal computers.

• Even ignoring its obsolescence, the text is flawed: the writing is uninteresting and repetitive; the photographs of hardware are silly (one box looks pretty much like another); and the selection of material for coverage is questionable.

• The author’s affiliation with a vendor of local network technology--prominently mentioned at the start of the chapter--is reflected in the section describing representative systems. That vendor’s product receives more coverage than any other local network, including Ethernet.

However, the focus is on what might be called the “engineering aspects” of local networks: their components and their specifications. This is why the chapter’s age is so telling. Many aspects of networking could have been discussed then which would have remained interesting today: fault-tolerant hardware, distributed file systems, databases, and processing; file servers; the problems of paging across a network; network usage accounting; error detection and correction; resource contention; the list goes on and on. But such issues are not addressed; this chapter is only concerned with those aspects of network technology most susceptible to obsolescence.

One could excuse the use of a chapter written in 1981 in some 1986 books. But given the current importance of local networks, and the presumed emphasis of this book, it is hard to imagine what editorial policy was used in assembling this volume.