Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!mit-eddie!bbn.com!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!texbell!texsun!newstop!sun!amdahl!netcom!jbreeden
From: jbreeden@netcom.UUCP (John Breeden)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: IP over starlan?
Message-ID: <12076@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jul 90 17:54:22 GMT
References: <1042@rossignol.Princeton.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 47

In article <1042@rossignol.Princeton.EDU> tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes:
>Not familiar with Starlan.  Want to know if you can talk IP (as in
>TCP/IP) over it while regular Starlan messages are going over it.  Will
>this interfere or what?  My question is based on the fact that you can
>run IP, Decnet, and Chaosnet over ethernet hardware.

Starlan10 is full IEEE 802.3/10baseT Draft10 (ie: It's 10mb 802.3/Ethernet
over Twisted Pair wire), and, in fact will interoperate with any other vendor's
product that conforms to the 10baseT Draft 7 or later. 

Also, Starlan is HARDWARE, not SOFTWARE. Ther are two flavors of Starlan.
Starlan1 is 1mb 802.3/Ethernet over twisted pair and conforms to IEEE 802.3
1base5 (1 mb baseband, 500 meters) and Starlan10 which is 10baseT (10mb,
baseband, twisted pair). 

AT&T's PC NOS is called StarGROUP, it is Lan Manager ported to Unix 
(Lan Manager/X), same protocols as 3Com 3+ Open, UB Lan Manager, HP Lan
Manager/X etc.

Consequently, Starlan can transport any protocol that can travel over
ethernet (ie: TCP-IP, DECnet, XNS, Lan Manager, Vines, etc, etc).

AT&T also manufactures PC interface cards w/ Twisted Pair connections on
the card (the 10baseT MAU is built on the card) called PC NAU (Network
Access Units). TCP-IP raw drivers exist for FTP, Woolongong and Beame &
Whiteside TCP-IPs. Both the Clarkson Packet Driver and an NDIS driver
exist for the cards allowing the Public Domain TCP-IPs from NCSA and KA9Q
to run on top of the cards. The use of the packet drivers and NDIS drivers
also allow multiple protocol stacks to run simultanously (ie: TCP-IP-Lan 
Manager, TCP-IP-Netware, TCP-IP-Lan Manager-LAT, Lan Manager-Novell to name 
just a few possible combinations).

So, to summarize. Starlan is NOT a propriatory protocol, it is based on
open standards. It supports the complete range of ethernet protocols and
AT&T offers a wide range of drivers for their cards (Novell, Vines, Lan Manager,
TCP-IP, LAT, PCSA, Clarkson Packet Driver and NDIS driver).

And yes, you can talk StsrGROUP (Lan Manager) and TCP-IP simultanously (FTP
TCP-IP, Generic Ethernet Version, StarGROUP LM/X V3.3 and NDIS driver).

-- 
 John Robert Breeden, 
 netcom!jbreeden@apple.com, apple!netcom!jbreeden, ATTMAIL:!jbreeden
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose 
  from. If you don't like any of them, you just wait for next year's 
  model."