/* Timeout limit for response from target. */
-int remote_timeout = 20; /* Set default to 20 */
+/* The default value has been changed many times over the years. It
+ was originally 5 seconds. But that was thought to be a long time
+ to sit and wait, so it was changed to 2 seconds. That was thought
+ to be plenty unless the connection was going through some terminal
+ server or multiplexer or other form of hairy serial connection.
+
+ In mid-1996, remote_timeout was moved from remote.c to top.c and
+ it began being used in other remote-* targets. It appears that the
+ default was changed to 20 seconds at that time, perhaps because the
+ Hitachi E7000 ICE didn't always respond in a timely manner.
+
+ But if 5 seconds is a long time to sit and wait for retransmissions,
+ 20 seconds is far worse. This demonstrates the difficulty of using
+ a single variable for all protocol timeouts.
+
+ As remote.c is used much more than remote-e7000.c, it was changed
+ back to 2 seconds in 1999. */
+
+int remote_timeout = 2;
/* Non-zero tells remote* modules to output debugging info. */