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From: mead@UHURA.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU (Ted Mead)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: General/Philosphical Questions on PC/NOS's
Message-ID: <8909262039.AA19711@uhura.cc.rochester.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 89 20:39:49 GMT
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Everyone:

Thanks for all of your comments. If you have more please keep them coming!

Let me try a more direct question and then a few more general ones.

1) If you were to select a NOS that could interoperate with hosts
supporting the major operating systems (UNIX, VMS, VMS, VM, DOS, OS/2,
Finder), which one would you select?

2) Where can I get my hands on the LAN Manager specification?

3) Please clarify my understanding of LAN Manger. I will try to explain
it relative to the OSI model and try to work my way down. From all of
your comments and some of my own opinions... LAN Manager is an OSI (not
ISO) Application layer API. LAN Manager has it own OSI (not ISO)
presentation layer protocol. LAN Manager is written primarily to use
NETBIOS and Named Pipes as it's session layer protocol. I guess LAN
Manager may also include a session layer, whether it be NETBIOS or
Named Pipes is up to the implementation. Is that right?

From there down, it really depends on what transport/network protocol
NETBIOS or Named Pipes uses. If NETBIOS or Named Pipes is part of LAN
Manager, what transport/network layer protocol is is written to use.
More specifically, what transport/network protocol does the LAN Manager
NETBIOS or Named Pipes use. [It's starting to get confusing again :)!]
If LAN Manager doesn't specify a Transport/Network protocol, I would
assume that it could use any vendor product, such as Excelan's or CMC's
"smart cards". If it did use another vendors transport/network protocol
then the vendor of the protocol would have to make sure that it
supported NDIS. (What about OLDI or maybe FTP Software packet driver -
am I thankful for standards!).

After going through this confusing scenerio, it sounds like the LAN
Manager Spec. should just specify all seven layers of the protocol
stack! That would, I think, rid some of the confusion.

Was one of LAN Manager's objectives to provide a non-proprietary
networking environment for any operating system for the interim before
the ISO protocols are a reality. On the other hand, why did we need LAN
Manager when we have a tcp/ip based protocol stack [I would REALLY
appreciate any comments on this]?

Thanks,
Ted