Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tiamat!jim
From: jim@tiamat.FSC.COM (Jim O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Micnet
Summary: that's part of it
Message-ID: <226@tiamat.FSC.COM>
Date: 24 Jan 89 05:57:59 GMT
References: <1989Jan20.173957.1175@ateng.ateng.com> <3700019@eecs.nwu.edu>
Organization: Filtration Sciences Corp., Chattanooga, TN
Lines: 31

In article <3700019@eecs.nwu.edu>, skrenta@eecs.nwu.edu (Richard Skrenta) writes:
> I had two Xenix machines around for a while, so I tried Micnet.  I looked
> and looked, but couldn't find any kind of rlogin or such.  So, all you
> get is two-way mail over one serial line, right?  Seems like using a
> uutty would give you that plus being able to log in to the machine personally
> going either direction.
> If I've missed some of the capabilities of Micnet, please let me know.

Micnet, INHO, is easier to maintain and use in multi-site configurations.  In
a two machine setup like yours, uucp is probably better.  In multi-site
set-ups micnet has the advantage of:

1) hidden topology:  rcp siteA:file1 siteB:file2 works exactly the same
   whether the network looks like   siteA ---- siteB  or
   siteA  ---- siteC ---- siteB

   uucp doesn't directly support multi-hop transfers, does it? (at least the
   uucp supplied with Altos xenix never did)

2) two-way communications over one line - only very recent versions of Xenix
   are coming out with dial-in/-out support that works.  People stuck with old
   versions of xenix have no easy recourse.

Micnet certainly isn't "God's gift to serial networking" but it has its
applications.  As big a fan as I am, even I admit it needs improvements.
(See article posted two days ago.)

--jim
------------- 
James B. O'Connor			jim@FSC.COM
Filtration Sciences Corporation		615/821-4022 x. 651