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From: clements@bbnccq
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio.packet
Subject: Q Street on TNCs
Message-ID: <253@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 13:09:31 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.253
Posted: Wed Oct 30 13:09:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 07:20:00 EST
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Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
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From: Bob Clements 
Fellow Packeteers:


Two comments on the article in the new QST on the TAPR, Heath and AEA TNCs...

1)  The article says, approximately, that the TAPR code implements
    the ARRL-blessed AX.25 (Service mark pending!) protocol. And that
    it implements it correctly and has no bugs.

    Comment:   AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGHGHHHH!!!!!   Yuck!  Such lies!!!!
    It implements only version 1 of the protocol, not the current V2.0.
    And it has bugs all over the place, particularly under any congestion.
    I am furious at TAPR for not getting out their maintenance release in
    literally years. I refuse to even consider a TNC-2 for this reason.

    ARRL continues to write only glowing reviews of anything at all.
    I continue to have no faith in their reviews.

    Yuck!  Yuck!!! Ptooey!!!!!!


and now that I have that out of my system....

2)  QST says the AEA has fixed the design bug that caused NOVRAM to
    fail so much on TAPR TNCs.   I have never seen any real claim
    as to what needs to be done to fix it. Early rumors involved
    the clock oscillator running at the wrong speed sometimes,
    which it did, but that is NOT the thing (or the only thing)
    killing the NOVRAM.  Does anyone know what AEA did about the
    NOVRAM?  Packeterm uses a lithium battery and static RAM, but
    maintains software compatibility.  Heath added a feedback
    loop in the reset circuit to get a longer reset pulse, which
    may or may not be the reason my HD4040 NOVRAM works better than
    the ones in my two TAPR TNC-1s. But I don't know anything about
    the AEA circuit.

73,

Bob, K1BC