Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!agate!ziploc!stan
From: stan@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Stan Osborne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: SLIP (was Re: businessland fire sale tactics (eccch))
Summary: NeXT Please Wise Up!
Message-ID: <1017@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Date: 13 Nov 90 23:36:39 GMT
References: <1635@camex.COM> <1990Nov13.140336.10181@sctc.com> <11081@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: San Francisco State University
Lines: 37

In article <11081@pt.cs.cmu.edu> cmaeda@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Christopher Maeda) writes:
>order an upgrade board and get my home ethernet set up.  My old ibm-pc
>has been earmarked as a slip-to-thinnet router.  What fun!
>

Is it not obvious to everyone, including NeXT that the only cost
effective way for people to put their home on the Internet (or any net)
is to use SLIP?  (Serial Line Internet Protocol)

We have students and faculty who want to buy a NeXT for use at home.
At least for the faculty, and possibly for the students, we are planning
to provide dial-in SLIP support.  The fact NeXT is still unwilling to
support SLIP (or make it easily available), puts a damper on our
ability to recommend NeXTs for home use.

It is both silly and unecessary for people to need a PC at home to
be the slip-to-thinnet router.

(Using SLIP to put a machine at home on your Net at work or school
means you can use sendmail, telnet, ftp, talk, etc. over a dial-up
link from home.  No more UUCP store and forward.   Give the type
of modems you can anywhere from slow to reasonable line speeds.
The most important feature, is that it works even if it may be slow.)

Why has NeXT hemmed and hawed over the issue of supporting
SLIP?  If there was a technical problem a year ago, (when they
said they had it working but were not releasing it,) they have
now had more than enough time to fix it.  SLIP is available
for Sun Workstations, PCs, and rumored to be available on
MacIIs.  Will NeXT catch on that some its customers really 
need SLIP?

Stan

-- 
Stan Osborne, Computer Science Department, San Francisco State University
Internet: stan@cs.sfsu.edu    Usenet: cshub!stan    Voice: (415) 338-2168