Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!motcsd!mcdcup!mcdhup!mcdchg!tellab5!nucsrl!accuvax.nwu.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!jln From: jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm Subject: Re: MacTCP over serial line? Message-ID: <1627@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> Date: 5 Dec 90 16:15:15 GMT References: <90337.102052MAUKONEN@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu> Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Distribution: comp Organization: Northwestern University Lines: 34 I too am eagerly awaiting SLIP support in MacTCP. In particular, we would very, very much like to be able to support the use of MacTCP-based applications by Mac users who use a modem to connect to our Cisco terminal server. For every Mac on the Northwestern campus which is directly connected to our campus internet, there are ten more which have only modem access. I know that there are various free and commercial Mac software packages which do support SLIP TCP/IP (the serial version of Eudora, KA9Q, Intercon's TCP-Connect II, etc.), but I really don't want to have to support two completely different parallel sets of Mac TCP/IP application software, one set for directly connected Macs, and another set for dialup Macs. SLIP support in MacTCP seems like the natural and obvious solution to our problem. From various conversations and reading of postings, I understand that SLIP support cannot simply be "tacked" on top of the existing MacTCP 1.0.1 implementation, but would have to be done by Apple as part of MacTCP itself (or at least more "hooks" would have to be implemented in MacTCP). I'm not an expert on this though, so I could easily be wrong. In the past I've heard rumors that SLIP support in MacTCP was coming REAL SOON NOW :-), and now I hear in this thread that there's no activity in this area right now. I know that companies don't usually let their employees comment on "unannounced products", but couldn't someone from Apple or elsewhere at least let us know if this is a "planned future direction"? This is important to us here at NU and to many other people. John Norstad Academic Computing and Network Services Northwestern University jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu