Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!ncar!ames!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpccc!hp-sde!hpfcdc!hpldola!hp-lsd!hpcsla!hpcsd02!bdale
From: bdale@hpcsd02.HP.COM (Bdale Garbee)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: (A)Re: TrailBlazer and UUCP
Message-ID: <480001@hpcsd02.HP.COM>
Date: 3 Aug 88 19:41:46 GMT
References: <311@mikros.systemware.de>
Organization: HP Colorado Springs Division
Lines: 33

>The only trouble is, nobody (certainly not me!) has wrapped KA9Q/4.3BSD/
>SLIP/FTP with the control software to let it autodial from one host to
>another and play exactly the sort of role uucico plays now. That would be
>a beginning to superseding UUCP. (Imagine, dialup SMTP, no "!" addresses...)

Not entirely true on two counts.

First, there was some work done somewhere on a package for 4.3 called ASLIP.
I have the bits on my machine at home, but can't get there from here right
now... allows for logging in to a bsd unix system, and then having the port
magically become a slip link.  Now all you need is an autodialer wrapper for
Dos.  There was a package on a local bbs called DOSMODEM that included silly
little routines to send 'AT' commands at a port, and to twiddle DTR.  I have
thought on several occasions that combining this with one of the Carrier Detect
watchdogs would be a good quick and dirty way to make this happen.  

Secondly, replacing uucp with SMTP over slip will require a protocol layer
violation.  Because uucp in inherantly a batched mechanism, it deals well with
a network that is not fully connected.  SMTP assumes the availability of a
path from here to there whenever traffic becomes available.  You'd need some
sort of top-layer routine that would know when dials had been successful, and
could fire off SMTP.  When to hang up is a sticky question as well.

A more reasonable solution might be to run the UUCP protocol, but to use TCP
as a replacement for the g protocol.  I haven't thought much about this.

Finally, given current bits as mentioned above, I think it would be fairly 
easy to "nail up" dialed slip connections between a PC and a Unix host, or
even between PC's via PC-Pursuit, where the connection would stay around for
a good length of time... using slip as a uucp-type mechanism, particularly
over toll calls, is probably unreasonable.

73 - Bdale, N3EUA