On Mar 2, 2006, at 10:42 PM, leonhorrocks wrote: > I meant odd by, different OS, different chipset, different versions > of Logic. So I guess the > data that goes to the node has nothing to do with how the sofware > has been compiled. It's > just raw DSP calculations. I guess a G4 and G5 is a different chip, > and the huge difference > between a core duo and a g4 means nothing to then node. Its just > number crunching. That's the way to design a network protocol; it's a really fundamentally useful concept, and it is exactly the reason why the Internet succeeded. The goals are platform independence (as such, information is presented back and forth in a well-known format), efficiency (so information is abstracted in an efficient way), and extensibility (making it possible to add new features while still working properly with earlier versions.) Regardless of whether it's a G4, G5, or Intel running Logic or the Node, the messages passed across the network are exactly the same. (OK, I would expect that they would carry information about the processor in the messages, so that bit would be different.) Later versions may send new types of data in a way that old versions know how handle at some level (at least by skipping over it.) You're not surprised when a web browser continues to work (modulo the occasional bug) even across a wide range of hardware, o/s, and versions; it's exactly the same principle.