From: eengelke@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Erick Engelke)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.networking
Subject: Re: ibm tcp/ip a ripoff?
Date: 12 Jan 93 21:13:41 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo

assela@marcus.its.rpi.edu (A. Andre Asselin) writes:
>eengelke@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Erick Engelke) writes:
>>> jp1ek@sunc.shef.ac.uk writes:

>>>i am beginning to think ibm tcp/ip is a rip off.  my comparative
>>>reference is the wattcp freeware tcp/ip for msdos and ...

>As a former co-op in IBM's TCP/IP development, here are mine...

>>>c) few ethernet cards supported (compared to wattcp with ... packet drivers);

>>...And the configuration is pretty gruesome.  I find this true of
>>all NDIS installations, who decided we didn't mind rebooting
>>20 times and manually editing scripts just to get the configuration 
>>right or if we want to try someone else's TCP.
>
>>I can run DOS based ODI and Packet Drivers fine under DOS VDMs,
>>but my 3c507 NDIS driver kills my modem, go figure!
>
>NDIS is the standard network adapter interface under DOS, OS/2 and now NT.  

I beg to differ.  THE standard network adapter interface is the one
in most use.  Novell's officially endorsed standards and PDI probably
put NDIS in third place.  

>As far as setup goes, have you ever tried NTS/2 (also called LAPS)?  It's
>cake.  Click on your adapter, click on your protocol, and bang, you're done.

Not so, drivers for half the cards I own were not there.  Instead it
was necessary to play for a few hours with files downloaded from 3com
and manually edit the scripts.  I tried it the official way, but it
didn't work.

And remember, I'm no hick to the subject, I have installed, used and
programmed for most PC implementations of TCP and written my own and
of course done the unix thing under many different brand names.  

>>But I too have found the IBM supplied apps very crude and
>>often broken (worst VT100/220 emulator I've seen, TELNETD
>>crashes much more frequently and is less responsive than my own
>>running under DOS!)
>
>I can't vouch for what you're seeing on your machine, but as far as I'm
>concerned, I've never had a problem with any of the Telnet clients getting
>into my campus UNIX computers...

Protocol adherance isn't proven by just telnetting into a few Unix
systems.  There are many non-unix systems and it becomes an n-complete
problem to tackle it that way.  But there are some some carefully crafted
conformance testers which look for common bugs.  One such system
is available somewhere on netlab.usu.edu, but I don't remember the name.

BTW, people who write the core terminal driving software often avoid 
using all the escape sequences available to them because many VT emulators 
are broken in various ways.  Instead the typical situtation is to
select a few core sequences and loose slight efficiency but at
the benefit of increased compatibility with broken implementations.
I know this because I have implemented a few TELNET daemons and
have had to accomodate loose or broken emulators. 

The comparison I keep hearing in the defense is how much simpler or
nicer it is compared to Unix.  But remember, it is competing in the
DOS/Windows/NT classes, not Unix.

I don't want to come off as suggesting IBM TCP is crap.  ICAT works
well for installations, the core applications are there and I believe
third party apps will make up the difference.  But don't expect this
TCP to offer utilities which look as nice as some of the windows
counterparts or even many of the freeware products such as NCSA
TELNET or match the flexibility of MS-Kermit.  

It's only when you look to IBM's extensions (extra $) for X or
NFS that you get a clear advantage over running freeware DOS
apps in a DOS VDM.

Erick

-- 
Erick Engelke					  Engineering Computing
						 University of Waterloo
Waterloo TCP Architect		 erick@development.watstar.uwaterloo.ca
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11554 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3661