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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!karn
From: karn@faline.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: standard interface
Message-ID: <1563@faline.bellcore.com>
Date: Fri, 20-Nov-87 21:39:19 EST
Article-I.D.: faline.1563
Posted: Fri Nov 20 21:39:19 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Nov-87 23:58:24 EST
References: <301@halley.UUCP> <8711140117.AA08165@violet.berkeley.edu> <304@halley.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 20
Summary: PC interfaces

I've been following the discussion about standard programming interfaces
to transport protocols on the PC, but I'm puzzled.

The ability to support multiple concurrent applications was an absolute
design criteria in the KA9Q Internet Protocol package. Since MS-DOS by
itself is little more than a glorified bootstrap loader, I had little
choice but to combine all of the protocols and applications into a
single MS-DOS program (net.exe) which essentially takes over the machine
and performs a crude form of multitasking internally. (You *can* run
other things alongside net.exe by using DoubleDos or Desqview, but
there's no inter-process communication).

I see little hope of establishing a standard application/transport
interface on the PC until we can trash MS-DOS in favor of a "grownup"
operating system. I'm not willing to sacrifice concurrent applications.

I'd like to come to the TCP/IP Interoperability conference, but I already
agreed to go to another conference to talk about...yes, TCP/IP. :-)

Phil