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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lan
Subject: Re: HP's TCP/IP implementation
Message-ID: <271@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Sep-84 18:00:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.271
Posted: Wed Sep  5 18:00:52 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 04:44:43 EDT
References: <260@cbosgd.UUCP>, <725@CS-Arthur>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 33

Now wait a minute.  In my discussions with HP (I'm in the same department
as David Bryant) I don't recall HP advertising their networking as either
a product that can be bought today or as TCP/IP.  What they did say
repeatedly was that they were watching to see what the rest of the industry
does about networking UNIX, and that they will conform to whatever evolves
as an industry standard (and their customers request.)  Their current
in-house implementation is indeed similar to TCP/IP, but isn't in a product.
(Unless it's recently become a product and I just haven't heard about it.)

In any case, HP is responsive to its customers requests, but they have a
big overhead with any product that requires people to do work (being another
big memo-producing organization, I feel for them) so there will have to be
a big payoff to be worth their while.  So I echo David's request that you
tell your local HP sales person that their code MUST CONFORM to the
industry standards, or it won't do you any good.  Point out that you need
	Ethernet
	ARP
	IP
	TCP
	Telnet/FTP/SMTP
and that it would be nice to have optional enhancements (that can be turned
off!) like no TCP checksums, trailer protocols, and Berkeley's
rlogin/rcp/rsh/rwho/ruptime.

Also, would someone at HP LABS in California please contact whoever is doing
their network UNIX development and set up a connection?  The best way for
them to write compatible code is to plug into an existing network, such
as you already have.  If you can't afford a leased line or don't want to
wait 6 months to have it installed, you can run SLIP over a 1200 baud dialup;
we do here and it's fine for testing and even FTP and mail and rsh (but
not for remote login.)

	Mark Horton