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From: renglish@hpisod1.HP.COM (Robert English)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: NetBIOS over TCP/UDP
Message-ID: <9320001@hpisod1.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Oct 88 20:41:19 GMT
References: <185@hsi86.hsi.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 28

> / snorthc@RELAY-NSWC.NAVY.MIL /  4:49 am  Oct 19, 1988 /

> That however is the answer [ I think] to the question what is NetBIOS
> for.  Even just as a file service, it had potential.  What choked it
> for us was the memory required to make it work.  Why would anyone
> want transparent file access?  Sigh.  To this day, I wouldn't want
> to be held to this, but supposedly users do not want to be bothered
> to log in via FTP to xfer a file.  They want the file to be referenced
> as drive "F:".

Saying "users don't want to be bothered" trivializes the issue somewhat.
There are many DOS applications in which users never see the actual
files involved.  The application presents them with menus to perform
tasks, and manages the files itself.  A user who had to transfer all of
the necessary files over via FTP would have to be much more
sophisticated than one who merely used the application.

Furthermore, there is the issue of file-sharing.  If users access the
files on the remote machine directly, they can share effectively share
data with other users.  If they must copy the data back and forth, they
are likely to get inconsistent versions, forget to do the copies, etc.
(I know, you've never walked away from a terminal without writing out a
file).

Working in a non-transparent environment is significantly more
complicated than working in a transparent one.

--bob--