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From: barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Tired C programmer (Really configuration files)
Message-ID: <39824@think.UUCP>
Date: 1 May 89 07:31:07 GMT
References: <1989Apr30.183925.19847@cs.rochester.edu> <ROBERTS.89Apr30225016@studguppy.lanl.gov>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 29

In article <ROBERTS.89Apr30225016@studguppy.lanl.gov> roberts@studguppy.lanl.gov (Doug Roberts) writes:
>In article <1989Apr30.183925.19847@cs.rochester.edu> miller@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (Brad Miller) writes:
>   Actually, I'd say it's more sophisticated: the lispms employ "transparent
>   networking" which is considerably more efficient than UNIX. editing/copying
>   a file on the lispm, e.g. from the INTERNET is (for the user) the same as
>   editing copying locally. You don't run FTP, then copy the file, then edit
>   it... and that's a trivial example.
>You don't have to do it that way on a Unix system. Simply mount the
>external file system. (And it's a _lot_ faster than the Symbolics'
>(ILA)NFS software).

First of all, the above only works if the server happens to be running
the same networked file system protocol as you.  Lisp machines have
been able to access arbitrary remote file systems for a decade, using
pre-existing networking protocols.  Is there an NFS server for
TOPS-20, ITS, Multics, or Macintosh?  The Lispm can access all of
these using ordinary FTP.

Also, the Lispm generic network facilities aren't limited only to file
access.  For instance, there's also just one terminal protocol, which
automatically chooses the appropriate remote login protocol (Supdup or
Telnet over TCP/IP or Chaos, VMS's login protocol over Decnet, ASCII
over a serial port, etc.).

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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