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From: mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu (Jeff E Mandel MD MS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: MacTCP over Dialup AppleTalk?
Message-ID: <6119@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 91 16:46:02 GMT
References: <1991Feb13.052728.22533@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: news@rex.cs.tulane.edu
Organization: Tulane University School of Medicine
Lines: 46

In article <1991Feb13.052728.22533@parc.xerox.com> sanders@parc.xerox.com (Rex
Sanders) writes:
>This idea might be crazy, but maybe someone has tried.
>
>Rather than waiting forever for MacTCP+SLIP, what about running MacTCP
>over dialup AppleTalk?
>
>By dialup AppleTalk, I'm talking about products like Shiva NetModem,
>Farallon Liason, Hayes Interbridge, etc., with Shiva FastPath or
>Cayman GatorBox doing AppleTalk-TCP/IP routing (see diagram below).
>
>Can you get acceptable performance for MacX, Eudora, or NCSA Telnet
>with this scheme?
>
>Is 2400 baud uselessly slow?  Is 9600 baud usable?
>
>The setup I have in mind is something like:
>
> MacX---MacTCP---AppleTalk---Shiva NetModem
>                                   #
>                                   #  Telephone line
>                                   #
>Shiva FastPath---AppleTalk---Shiva NetModem
>   $
>   $  Ethernet TCP/IP
>   $
>Sun Server
>

I have used such a setup with Telebit Trailblazers and a Dataspace Telenode,
and it is bareley usable. Since most of what I want from home is mail and news,
and I have a VAX, I just use the VMS MAIL and RPI's news client, but it doesn't
diminish my ineterst in SLIP, PPP, etc. The issue no one has addressed is the
setting where you want 8 moems hanging off a terminal server, and want the
option of dialing in for LAT, telnet, or network access. I have talked to a
number of server manufacturers, and there seems little interest in putting
async Appletalk into a terminal server. Thus, SLIP or PPP seems the more likely
option. I suspect that this will be a relatively small part of the market, but
as more programs that use networks incorporate support for MacTCP, it will
become increasingly attractive to have a multiline SLIP server, especially in
multivendor environments.

Jeff E Mandel MD MS
Asst Professor of Anesthesiology
Tulane University School of Medicine
New Orleans, LA