Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!nosc!tetra!budden
From: budden@tetra.NOSC.MIL (Rex A. Buddenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Subject: Re: Need TCP/IP for CP/M
Summary: but there's hope...
Keywords: no way
Message-ID: <715@tetra.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 8 Dec 88 03:19:20 GMT
References:  <294@antares.UUCP>
Reply-To: budden@tetra.nosc.mil.UUCP (Rex A. Buddenberg)
Organization: US Coast Guard, Washington DC
Lines: 31

Agree with Joe Smith that TCP/IP just won't quite fit into CPM.
Also, it is rather unwieldy if you don't have a multi-tasking
operating system.  The MS-DOS implementations suffer in this
regard and some (KA9Q, in particular) end up phonying up the
multi-tasking in the program, thereby making up for OS deficiencies.
There goes a bunch more RAM space in your already blivetted-out
CPM system.

However...We've done quite a bit of standardization work with
fault tolerant, survivable LANs suitable for ships (and now have
SAFENET spec'ed for a new class of buoy tenders...).  One of
the problems we've discovered is that TCP/IP (and TP4/CLNP too,
for that matter) are too clumsy and slow for the tactical things
we need to do in Coast Guard cutters and Navy ships.  So we've
cast about for other protocols.  The most promising is called
eXpress Transfer Protocol from an outfit called Protocol 
Engines Inc.  They have done a lot of work on slimming down
the protocol itself (cutting the 9 packets necessary to run a
3-way handshake and transfer a single packet of info down
to 3 packets).  And the implementation is deliberately designed
to be cast into silicon (which you just can't do with TCP/IP).
Last I heard, they were talking about a 5-chip realization.
In a couple years -- they are still working on it.

Consider hanging a daughterboard off your CPM engine with a
protocol engine on it.  Plug into a network and you're off.

Warning: certain amount of vapor left in this.  PEI is definitely
serious, but they aren't pouring silicon yet.

Rex Buddenberg