@Jim Morrow: Are you for real?
"> No wonder we ran out of addresses so quick"
"yeah, right. it's borders' fault"
I 'm not blaming Borders, that comment was aimed at you. The thinking that you need one public IP for every terminal in a building.
You show me any reference that says that Borders had 10~20 PCs per shop in the days pre-Nat, pre-Broadband? Do you really think they had 10~20 PCS running over dial-up or do you think every single store had a leased line?
You do realise that Private IP space was always available? You run you office/department on a Private IP address block and then run a proxy to fetch from the web using a single public IP address.
"10 point of sale terminals -- how do barcode readers find the info for itemised bills?" - really! Do you honestly think that POS terminals now or ever connected up to the public web to get sale info?
Jeez, that data is sent down from head office, sits on a server an is read from there. The same way it always has done. Even if you wanted live up-to-the-second data. You run a VPN over dial-up, leased line using ***Private addresses***. This was days pre-public facing services on general back-office servers. You are trying to claim that a bookshop was at the forefront of this technology running internet cafes and live updating real-time price control from third party companies- don't make me laugh.
These, weren't workarounds - this is what happened and still do.
Back in Pre-Nat days there was no comprehension of having so many devices connected directly to the web or having every PC connected. It was just a major land grab to show your status and size of your company.
It is your warped ideas Mr Morrow in a weird mix of taking the current and trying to reverse engineer it into the past and coming up with nonsense.