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From: paulh@hplsla.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Spec for MAP & TOP
Message-ID: <620001@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 15-Jun-87 11:52:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplsla.620001
Posted: Mon Jun 15 11:52:54 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jun-87 00:46:16 EDT
References: <71@teletron.UUCP>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 52

I've got a November '85 version of the TOP "spec".
TOP stands for Technical and Office Protocols.  The Boeing Co.
seems to be one of the major drivers.  TOP and MAP share the
ISO layers 2 through 6, but differ in the physical and application
layer.  

The layer that defines the interpretation of bits is the presentation
layer, layer 7 in OSI.  ISO seems to be going for the Abstract Syntax
Notation 1 for that layer.  The ASN.1 standard is identical to the 
CCITT X.409 Recomendation.  ASN consists of a data declaration standard,
which looks roughly like Pascal, and a data encoding standard, which is
binary but could be ASCII.

All of the information above dates from 1985.  I'm not sure what's 
going on with it right now.  I'd sure like to know.

Here's some document titles and addresses:

	Information Processing Systems - Open System Interconnection:
	Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), 
	ISO DP 8824

	Information Processing Systems - Open System Interconnection:
	Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1),
	ISO DP 8825

	ISO documents from:
	Ms. Frances Schrotter
	ANSI
	ISO TC97/SC6 Secretariat
	1430 Broadway New York, NY 10018
	(212) 354-3300

	TOP documents from:
	Boeing Computer Services
	Network Services Group
	P.O. Box 24346, M/S 7C-16
	Seattle, WA 98124-0346

Again, those addresses are a year and a half old.  There's also another 
two pages of documents referenced in that TOP specification.  I'll mail
a photocopy to anyone interested.  I'd recommend getting the current
TOP document first, however.

If anyone does happen to figure out what's going on with those standards,
please post here or send me some mail.



	Paul Hall		ihnp4!{hplabs|harpo}!hp-pcd!hplsla!paulh
	(206) 335-2252		paulh_hall%50@hpa100
	Hewlett-Packard Co.	8600 Soper Hill Rd   Everett, WA 98205-1298