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From: Rudy.Nedved@H.CS.CMU.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Telnet binary mode
Message-ID: <1987.6.19.23.25.3.Rudy.Nedved@h.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 19-Jun-87 19:57:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: h.1987.6.19.23.25.3.Rudy.Nedved
Posted: Fri Jun 19 19:57:16 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jun-87 21:52:57 EDT
References: <216009.870618.JBVB@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
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James,

There are enough popular programs that assume the top bit is off that by
assuming otherwise will put you in trouble. On the other hand, if you can
write off those people or can get the software "fixed" then you win.

CMU CS/RI cheats and uses the 8-bit. We have been yelled at several times but
because the people involved are using wimpy IBM PCs, we win since we do not
care about PCs (and the software people use is locally distributed with CMU
mods). We have lost in our situations where the specification did not
define who was right and who was wrong...and making the world continue to
work was a higher priority then cleaner and faster local functionality.

However there are lots of PCs out there and they do not hang off of a network
like CMU, Stanford or MIT's. Therefore, if you go the way you are doing...you
will find lots of unhappy people....these are the people that recomend your
software (and they hate changing software that seems to work so changing the
spec in retrospec is not going to get the software fixed).

The result is still the same as what Mark Crispin says. You should have a
command that gives them the option of a full 8-bit connection and then you
allow them to have a work-around. People will complain that it is not
automatic....but they can still get their work done and your customer service
people can actually still give them an answer. If you force binary on the
sly....well, you will hit implementations that also do weird binary action on
the sly....different then yours....and you can not complain since you are
wrong too (and they will undoubtedly have the same type of arguments as
you since the speicfication in the long term was a design judgement).

All and all the end is still the same, the TOPS-20 implementation is the best
one around (in terms of correctness, I will argue about performance) and you
can not change the specificatiion....too many installed bases of software that
obey it close enough. You should use the TOPS-20 telnet server as part of your
certification process...and you should provide work arounds for the clients
who are talking to systems that are not quite on the ball.

-Rudy