From: me@leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov (Henning Leidecker)
Subject: Re: Connecting NeXTs to 3Com PC networks
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 19:58:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug10.155510.20437@mksol.dseg.ti.com> dahla@mksol.dseg.ti.com  
(alexander dahl) writes:
> In article <1992Aug6.155640.3151@wpa.com> john@wpa.com (John Bartley) writes:
> >What type of hardware and software are available to do this? Does  
> >anyone have any recommendations on the best way to accomplish this? I'm  
> >particularly interested in e-mail and file transfer. 
> >[chomp]
> >If anyone has an "war stories" you're willing to share, I'd like to  
> >read them.

[chomp]

Our organization mandated use of 3COM for our PCs, and installed Ether-cables  
to our offices, a master server, a gateway, "the full catastrophe"  (...Zorba).

When I got my NeXT, I "tee-ed" a connection to the Ether-cable installed in my  
office, and went on to effect the software part of installing the NeXT onto our  
InterNet service.  No problems.  Took about an hour hour total; would take  
*much* less the second time.  There are no interferences between 3COM and  
TCP/IP; nor should any be expected.  (Except that my NeXT effortlessly "grabs  
the line" from the PCs and Macs, and some of my transfers are 200 Mbytes.   
Still, at a typical 200 to 300 Kbytes/sec to other NeXTs and SGs and RS6000s, I  
don't hog the line for very long.)

My colleagues on 3COM can send and receive e-mail with anyone on the InterNet  
by using a forwarding service.  My e-mail address on the 3COM side is actually  
an alias for my InterNet address + forwarding data, so I get 3MAIL in a way  
transparent to my 3COM colleagues --- they think they are sending to a 3MAIL  
address.  And I can send to them equally transparently, using aliases for their  
names.  The "reply" key correctly addresses return e-mail on both 3MAIL side  
and NeXT-side.  Works for mail-lists too (i.e., when someone sends to  
"AllCode313" within 3MAIL, a copy is automatically sent to my InterNet  
address).  E-mail attachments work too.  (Except attachments *sometimes* get  
silently truncated, so attention to comparing transmitted and received file  
size is important.)

Some of our PCs have "telnet" and "ftp" packages installed, which allow them  
InterNet access using the same hardware installed for the 3COM net.  (Depending  
on the particular flavor of EtherCard installed in the PC, re-booting is --- or  
is not --- necessary when changing between 3COM and TCP/IP.)  The PCs easily  
log onto the NeXTs, which is one way we transfer files.  We cannot get the PCs  
to log onto VAXes running at least some of the TCP/IP packages.  And we cannot  
ftp *to* the PCs of course, since they are (at least while running MS-DOS) not  
able to be conscious and chew gum at the same time.

3COM sold us the package to allow Macs to attach to the 3COM-net; some of the  
Macs also have the NCSA Telnet package, so they access either 3COM or InterNet.   
I would like this sort of connectivity between the NeXTs and 3COM, but had not  
followed up.  Now, there is no more 3COM.  We shall see...

Regards,
Henning Leidecker
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware