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From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Prodigy Communications Protocol
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Date: 19 Nov 90 13:21:59 GMT
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In article <14775@accuvax.nwu.edu> rsm@math.arizona.edu (Robert S.
Maier) writes:

>There have been a good many articles in TELECOM Digest complaining
>about Prodigy.  Besides Prodigy's policies, many posters are irritated
>by their inability to capture Prodigy output to a file.

>Has anyone done anything about this?  I gather Prodigy uses a
>proprietary communications protocol, but is it possible to
>reverse-engineer it?  That would open the door to custom-designed
>Prodigy clients, running on any architecture.  And it would facilitate
>the addition of new features, such as capturing text and graphics
>output.

I have never used Prodigy, nor do I know much about its present form
(except for the glowing comments it gets here in TELECOM :-). But I
seem to recall that Prodigy is an outgrowth of what was once called
"Trintex", which included IBM, Sears and CBS. When CBS pulled out, the
"Tri-" prefix was no longer appropriate.

If Prodigy is indeed what was once Trintex, then the protocol being
used is NAPLPS (North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax),
which evolved from the Canadian "Telidon" protocol. If so, there are a
couple of companies out there selling PC-based NAPLPS display software
which may be better than what Prodigy offers. A company called Formic,
based in Montreal, comes to mind.

NAPLPS is a very efficient way to transmit shape-based graphics images
over serial lines, in a manner that's supposed to be device- and
resolution independent. It has been accepted as a standard by ANSI,
though it never cought on in the market as well as proponents had
hoped for.

If Prodigy is not based on NAPLPS... never mind :-)


Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
     evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!attcan!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504