Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!uwvax!dogie!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!JBVB
From: JBVB@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("James B. VanBokkelen")
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: What is SLIP?
Message-ID: <325089.880211.JBVB@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: 11 Feb 88 19:50:15 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 19

SLIP is a primitive encapsulation for IP on serial lines (usually
asynchronous).  IP using it works the same way as IP using Ethernet,
or IP over X.25, or IP over Token Ring.

I have been told that SLIP has its roots in an old serial protocol 3Com
came up with for communicating between fileservers, and was adopted for
use with IP and asynchronous serial lines some time later, initially for
use between gateways (IP routers).  Rick Adams did a public domain
implementation for 4.2 Unix, and now one is distributed with 4.3.  It is
only relatively recently that SLIP has been supported by any commercial
vendors.

Commercial implementations that I know of include ours, for the IBM PC,
and cisco Systems' SLIP port concentrator/terminal concentrator/IP router.
I have heard that Sun will support it soon, if not already, and that
Encore has or will have something for their Annex.

James B. VanBokkelen
FTP Software Inc.