Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!news
From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: TOPS vs. PublicFolder (was Re: acintosh Peer-to-Peer Communications)
Message-ID: <1990Feb16.012424.4823@intercon.com>
Date: 16 Feb 90 01:24:24 GMT
References: <3782@accuvax.nwu.edu> <5374@okstate.UUCP> <1990Feb14.184128.738@intercon.com> <741@suntops.Tops.Sun.COM>
Sender: @intercon.com
Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Sterling, VA
Lines: 31

In article <741@suntops.Tops.Sun.COM>, cohen@santa_fe.Tops.Sun.COM (Michael
Cohen) writes:
>   I must object to this claim.  The performance of TOPS vs. PublicFolder for 
> copying files has nothing at all to do with whether TOPS is optimized for
> LocalTalk vs. EtherTalk (or IP or TokenRing, etc.).

I'm still skeptical, though no offense intended.  The last version of TOPS
I used was 2.something (2.1? maybe), and it was noticably slower than other
file-sharing products (such as AppleShare, for example) when run over
EtherTalk.  Some of this may be due to the fact that the TOPS server is
designed not to "take over" the Macintosh it is running on, but the fact
that it isn't as good as other products at making use of the Ethernet
bandwidth indicates to me that the basic design of the software is
based on the characteristics of LocalTalk.

>   It has to do with the fact that TOPS is a file-sharing product, not a file
> transfer product. Hence TOPS uses a protocol that is optimized for file-sharing,
> namely a request-response transaction oriented protocol, such as ATP.
>   PublicFolder on the other hand is a file-transfer product, so it uses a
> protocol which is optimized for file transfer, namely a stream-oriented
> protocol, i.e. ADSP.

I must have a bad memory, then, because I could swear the author of Pulic
Folder has stated on the net that it uses plain old ATP...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view."
	--Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Return of the Jedi"