Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!fciva!dag
From: dag@fciva.FRANKCAP.COM (Daniel A. Graifer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Networking DOS to Unix (Know about commercial products...)
Message-ID: <603@fciva.FRANKCAP.COM>
Date: 7 May 91 18:53:46 GMT
References: <24479@well.sf.ca.us> <833@tiamat.fsc.com> <5940@eastapps.East.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: dag@fciva.UUCP (Daniel A. Graifer)
Organization: Coastal Capital Funding Corp., McLean, VA
Lines: 34

In article <5940@eastapps.East.Sun.COM> geoff@east.sun.com (Geoff Arnold @ Sun BOS - R.H. coast near the top) writes:
>And of course if your Unix box supports NFS (and what self-respecting
>system doesn't? :-) you can buy any one of the various DOS NFS
>clients from Sun, FTP, Wollongong, B&W, Siemens, etc.
>
>Geoff
>
>-- Geoff Arnold, PC-NFS architect, Sun Microsystems. (geoff@East.Sun.COM)   --
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--     Sun Microsystems PC Distributed Systems ...                          --
>--            ... soon to be a part of SunTech (stay tuned for details)     --

I haven't looked PC-based NFS clients for a couple of years, but last time
I looked, my main objection was the painful printer support.  You have to
trap your printer output to a file and then use a separate command to send
this to the lpr daemon on your host.

I know this is caused by the brain-damaged way that DOS applications do
printer I/O.  Since they assume they own the entire system, they finish a
print job by failing to send any more characters.  At most, an option is
provided to send a formfeed to clear the last page out of the printer.
Networks designed to support DOS deal with this by setting a timeout.
Output to the LPTn device is spooled, and after a period with no activity,
the contents are queued for printing, and the spool file reset.  Both Novell
(in this case Portable Netware) and Locus Computing's PC-Interface can do
this.  My point is that this is much cleaner and more obvious to your existing
DOS users.

Dan
-- 
Daniel A. Graifer			Coastal Capital Funding Corp.
Sr. Vice President, Financial Systems	7900 Westpark Dr. Suite A-130
(703)821-3244				McLean, VA  22102
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