Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!TWG.COM!ljm
From: ljm@TWG.COM (Leo J McLaughlin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: Query on NetBIOS on TCP/IP
Message-ID: <8909180902.ah07870@Obelix.TWG.COM>
Date: 16 Sep 89 01:13:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 24


>>It still isn't obvious to me how a NetBIOS over TCP/IP system would
>>say be able to talk  at all to a non-NetBIOS TCP/IP system.

>Ah. Well, you can't, anymore than you can get a NetBIOS over DECNet to
>talk to a NetBIOS over TCP to a NetBIOS over OSI to a NetBIOS over
>(3COM-Novell-Banyan-...).

>There's the rub. I suppose you could create some kind of NetBIOS
>translator to bridge underlying transport protocols, but nobody (to my
>knowledge) has.

Performance Technology has been selling a product called PowerBRIDGE
for some time.  It bridges differing protocol implementations of
NetBIOS.  There are two caveats.  One, that because naming resolution is
invisible to NetBIOS applications, an very small extra piece of DOS
software must be added to each host wishing to participate -- a problem
for UNIX or VMS NetBIOS hosts.  Two, the NetBIOSs must support different
LANA numbers (just how good is that NetBIOS implementation you bought?).

enjoy,
leo j mclaughlin iii
The Wollongong Group
ljm@twg.com