Re: Apple // networking?

["ralmin" <xbiber@bigpond.net.au>]

> Yeah.. There is someone working on an Ethernet adapter for the file://e,
> but since it won't help the file://c, I figure that a small TCP/IP stack
> and dialup support would be the best solution.
>
> The only problem with the TCP/dialup approach is that it won't make it
> very easy for the average person to hook the file://e or file://c up to a
> in-home LAN..  It would require one of the PC machines (or MAC or
> whatever) to provide an real ISP-like dialup connection.. Windows NT
> server can do it pretty easily with RAS, but it's not trivial to set
> up (for the average user.. and how many people have Windows NT
> server??)
>
> A dubious hack might be to construct, on a 95/98/NT/2K/XP machine, a
> custom program that talks over an RS-232 direct connection and mimicks
> an ISP's SLIP/PPP connection and acts like a proxy server or
> something.  I've written a BBS program (essentially) for windows that
> is multi-threaded (on NT, I have configured it to run on 8 or more
> ports.)  So I do have a code base of my own to pull from for a project
> like that.  Plus, I have done extensive network programming.. The only
> thing I need to really get a handle on is the TCP/SLIP/PPP
> implementations.

That's not a dubious hack, PPP is a peer-to-peer protocol which means client
and server behave in the same way. All you need is to get it talking to the
serial port without trying to dial or answer a modem.

Windows 98 comes with a Dial-Up Server program which allows people to dial
in over a modem and establish a PPP network connection. I don't know whether
it would respond to a simple null-modem cable instead of the "ring" signals
from a real modem, but it could be worth a try.

For that matter, I don't know if NT's RAS supports null modems either.

The Direct Cable Connection utility which can use a null-modem or a parallel
cable on Windows 9x also emulates a network adapter but I don't know whether
it is actually using PPP on the cable, so it may not be compatible.

Ralmin.