In the IEEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard, why is the maxium frame size 1500

Hello Jvcit,

This was an interesting question to research. The reason for the
minimum (64 bytes) is everywhere. The reason for 1500 as the maximum
frame size was much more difficult to find. I found it using a search
with
  Ethernet history
and followed by a couple links to get to
  http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/COMM/ETHER.HTM
The explanation is near the end and basically says that to be
compatible with existing LAN's, length values > 1500 were the old
style messages and up to 1500 were the new Ethernet messages. The
reference goes into more detail and indicates the other protocols it
was compatible with (all probably dead by now :-).

  --Maniac

This is likely an arbitrary setting, in that 1500 could be replaced by
1600 or 1400 with no ill effects, but in order to make a standard they
had to decide upon a number. A maximum size of 1500 likely was chosen
because it balanced the needs of packets to be able to be large enough
for efficient data transfer, while still small enough so that a single
user could not monopolize the network. As for why 1500 specifically
was chosen instead of other possible numbers that would also work just
as well, I have no idea.

RFC 894
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc894.html

Also of interest might be RFC 1191 regarding dynamic discovery of the
maximum transmission unit (MTU) of an arbitrary internet path.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1191.html.

It also lists the official maximum and minimum MTUs and the MTUs of
other various networks.