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From: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: MacIP
Message-ID: <8608110509.AA13008@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Mon, 11-Aug-86 01:09:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.8608110509.AA13008
Posted: Mon Aug 11 01:09:28 1986
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It has recently come to my attention that Kinetics has been shipping
an old, buggy version of MacIP, released in November 1986.  The final
version was released in December 1986 at the Maryland Campus Networking
Conference.  All the bugs but three were zapped in that release; the
remaining bugs are (1) due to stack space limitations and the desirability
of compatibility with the 128K Mac, desk accessories do not work with
TELNET.  (2) Because CMU was several years behind the rest of the world
in upgrading to 4.2bsd, I was unable to test the system with 4.2bsd
TELNET.  Consequently, it has a problem in that the 4.2 TELNET daemon
times out if you leave the session alone for a lengthy time.  (3) No
name service was available at CMU; therefore, I was unable to test name
service, and predictably it does not work.  The old UDP-based name service
is obsolete in any case; in the future I will be using domain name service.

For those of you who don't know already, I am working on a supported
version of MacIP, with the chief applications at first being TELNET and
FTP (not TFTP).  The protocols will be available to software running in any 
context on the Mac, without a need to link large protocol libraries.
This includes applications, desk accessories, drivers, and any other
type of code resource your fevered brain can imagine.  We at Centram
expect to ship a beta release during the second week of September;
however, we already have as many beta testers lined up as we can handle,
so please don't send me applications - sorry.

The new release is a complete ground-up reimplementation.  Software can
only go through so many hands before it wears out, and it's my opinion
that the PCIP code has reached this point, even with the improvements
I put into the TCP and TFTP protocols.  It was very good for code with
some twenty programmers working on it, originally intended to do small
protocol subsets and eventually extended to larger subsets, but I found
myself toward the end of work at CMU struggling mostly against the
limitations of this much-rehacked software (and Lisa Pascal, which I have
abandoned in favor of Workshop C.  For those of you who haven't had a
chance to play with this yet, check it out!  The Greenhills C compiler
it uses produces far better code than Megamax, Lightspeed, or Consulair,
albeit at the cost of compilation time.  The only significant bug is in
function pointers in non-application contexts, and Apple assures me they will
zap that one soon).

Another note: Because of considerations having to do with the linking of
Appletalk networks with standard Appletalk bridges, I will continue to
run IP on top of DDP.  Thanks in particular to Bill Croft and Martin
Haeberli for convincing me this is the right thing to do.

I should point out to those of you requiring protocol services for
original networking software that the University of Michigan has been
using the TCP protocol library for months in their MacApollo project
with minimal difficulties.  Therefore, the existing public domain code
may well be suitable for your needs.  All that is needed is a Lisa
Pascal compiler to create and link the protocol libraries.

I gave the updated software to Kinetics some weeks ago, so new shipments
should contain the December software.  If not, it means Kinetics is trying
to increase demand for their own terminal emulator, due to be released
this fall....

Tim Maroney
Centram Systems, Berkeley CA
ihnp4!hoptoad!tim (uucp), hoptoad!tim@lll-crg.arpa