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From: U47526@uicvm.uic.edu (David E. Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: NCSAT vs. AT&T Lan Manager(StarGROUP 3.4)
Message-ID: <91150.113645U47526@uicvm.uic.edu>
Date: 30 May 91 16:36:45 GMT
References: <1991May29.220808.21386@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Lines: 46

In article <1991May29.220808.21386@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>, Tony C. Cheng
<tcheng@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> says:
>
>Does anyone have experiences on installing NCSA Telnet on the AT&T
>Lan Manager network?  We recently get this network software upgrade
>from the AT&T and hope it work with NCSA Telnet packet drivers, but
>AT&T cannot give us specific information on the setup; they simply
>told us NCSAT should work along on the Lan Manager.  :-<
>
>They did mention about the use of NETBIND.EXE, but none of the
>documentation I have contains specific usage of this program.
>
We do not have your specific configuration, but it's pretty close so
it might be helpful to you.  We run Lan Manager 3.3 concurrently with
FTP Software's tcp/ip.  It works fine but uses a great deal of memory.
On 386's or SX's we can put most of the stuff in high memory so that
is not a problem (up to 578K free after both Lan Manager and TCP/IP
are loaded).  On the other end of the scale: an 8086 with 640K memory
has only about 367K free after loading the drivers.  This is pretty
limiting for typical DOS usage.

We have tried the Maryland DOS-IP package (another public domain
product) but have not been successful.  We have been able to load
all of the drivers (using the latest 'beta' NDIS driver), but after
making Lan Manger virtual drive links the tcp/ip services hang the
machine.  We really would like to use this package because it is
free and because it utilizes memory much more efficiently.  (Most
of the drivers can be loaded and unloaded as needed).  We are hoping
that future versions will fill the bill.

The use of netbind is not that difficult.  You simply call it just
before the ATTSTART line in the autoexec file.  You must have an
entry for it in the protocol.ini file that specifies it's binding
to the ATTCSMA driver.

Our experience with AT&T is that they are either unable or unwilling
to help with this dual protocol stack situation.  They have tried to
do a demo for us with their own SX machine using FTP software and
have been unable to make it work (in spite of the fact that a rather
big contract hinged on its success).  Trial and error has been a
much more productive avenue for us.

Good Luck!

David E. Thomas
University of Illinois at Chicago