Here's a true story, from about 1991.

I was checking on some end users that were using a custom AS400 application that fed our A/P system.

I noticed at their desk the existance of a) an unused coax cable and b) a 2400 baud modem. I also noticed their response was very slow and then noticed that they were dialing in on their own modems to the AS400. I asked them why they weren't using the coax, they said their manager told them they were saving money by dialing in.

Then I query them, "where is the host", so they take me not more than 20 feet to a room housing 2 AS400's. These two supported different systems, but used the same software, tweaked to each system. Since both The systems were very inter-related, and thus, they needed to share data.

So we have 2 AS400's sitting next to each other that need to share data. Did they have a wired connection? No, these two boxes were standing alone.

So how did the data get from one to the other? Well it was "easy"....tapes. What they did is each night they cut a round tape from system A and sent it to the data center 15 miles away, where they would copy it to a square tape for mounting on system B. and thus, they were able to share!