Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!sri-unix!rutgers!im4u!esc-bb!halley!bc From: bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Subject: Re: standard interface Message-ID: <307@halley.UUCP> Date: Mon, 30-Nov-87 08:14:08 EST Article-I.D.: halley.307 Posted: Mon Nov 30 08:14:08 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 3-Dec-87 04:29:46 EST References: <301@halley.UUCP> <8711140117.AA08165@violet.berkeley.edu> <304@halley.UUCP> <1563@faline.bellcore.com> Reply-To: bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) Organization: Tandem Computers, Austin, TX Lines: 38 In article <1563@faline.bellcore.com> karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes: >I've been following the discussion about standard programming interfaces >to transport protocols on the PC, but I'm puzzled. > >The ability to support multiple concurrent applications was an absolute >design criteria in the KA9Q Internet Protocol package. Since MS-DOS by >itself is little more than a glorified bootstrap loader, I had little >choice but to combine all of the protocols and applications into a >single MS-DOS program (net.exe) which essentially takes over the machine >and performs a crude form of multitasking internally. (You *can* run >other things alongside net.exe by using DoubleDos or Desqview, but >there's no inter-process communication). Now *I*'m puzzled. If (a) DOS is normally used in a single-tasking mode and (b) with DoubleDOS or DesqView, you don't get interprocess communication, then how do you figure that a self-contained net.exe supports "multiple concurrent applications"? Are all the applications built into the net.exe (yuck!)? The normal DOS-ish way of doing this is to provide an interface across a software interrupt -- i.e., TSR. But somehow this is what you are arguing *against*? >I see little hope of establishing a standard application/transport >interface on the PC until we can trash MS-DOS in favor of a "grownup" >operating system. I'm not willing to sacrifice concurrent applications. What do programming interfaces and application portability across them have to do with the fact that DOS is single-tasking? This seem to me to be independent. >I'd like to come to the TCP/IP Interoperability conference, but I already >agreed to go to another conference to talk about...yes, TCP/IP. :-) Darn, Karn, I was hoping to see you there, and to talk with you about KA9Q. -bc -- Bill Crews Tandem Computers Austin, Texas ..!rutgers!im4u!esc-bb!halley!bc (512) 244-8350