Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!visix!amanda
From: amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: Repost: SLIP on MacTCP ( TCP/Connect II )
Message-ID: <1991Feb11.214547.11101@visix.com>
Date: 11 Feb 91 21:45:47 GMT
References: <10739@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <1991Feb10.223033.11785@cshl.org> <1991Feb11.182843.13618@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA
Lines: 33

In article <1991Feb11.182843.13618@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
eer36024@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Erik Reuter) writes:
>Therefore, a question: how difficult would it be to hack together a
>MacTCP/SLIP from the source code to the SLIP modified version of NCSA Telnet?

Oh, I'd say 6-10 months worth of work, for someone who (a) worked on
it full time, and (b) already deeply understood MacTCP and the NCSA
TCP/IP code.  This doesn't include beta testing time.  The biggest problems
are that the APIs for MacTCP and the NCSA TCP/IP kernel are not very much
alike, and that MacTCP needs to do its timing and TCP processing at
interrupt time, rather than at GetNextEvent time like the NCSA code.

This is just a guess off the top of my head, as someone who does know
both MacTCP and the NCSA code quite well.

It's certainly possible, but I doubt it would be worth doing unless a
company or university paid for the development time.  There's also the
chance that Apple will fix MacTCP in the meantime, thus allowing someone
else to do a SLIP module for it in a month or so.  Quite a gamble.

What might (and I stress *might*) be easier is to build a giant CTB
connection tool for SLIP that itself used the NCSA code.  This is in
some senses a smaller problem, but still not a project to sneeze at,
if only because the existing MacX TCP connection tool is completely
undocumented.  This could make its behavior hard to duplicate.

Bugging Apple is probably a more worthwhile use of your time and effort :).
-- 
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."
		--Dwight D. Eisenhower