advisor@utcsstat.UUCP (07/18/83)
Can anyone tell me anything about NAPLPS (North American
Presentation Level Protocol Standard)? I'm especially
interested in finding out where I can get references or
specs...
Thanx in advance,
Krys Warchol
...utzoo!utcsstat!advisordwex@wxlvax.UUCP (David Wexelblat) (07/19/83)
For the past several months, BYTE magazine has been running a series
of articles that you should find helpful.
David Wexelblat
...decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!dwexgrunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (07/20/83)
#R:utcsstat:-78800:uiuccsb:8300001:000:789 uiuccsb!grunwald Jul 19 17:23:00 1983 I'm posting this since it might be of interest to others. I have a 3rd hand copy of the draft proposal. On there, it lists the office to send suggestions and what-not to as: X3 Secretariat/CBEMA 311 First Street, N.W. Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20001 And says that it was prepared by "Technical committe X3L2 - codes and character sets". At the top is this gibberish "BSR X3.110-198X, Project 359D" Which might be a publication number or the writers laundry ticket -- I'm not sure since it's not labeled as anything. If you have any simple questions about it, I'll try to answer them, but I haven't done anything but glance through this and read the most interesting sections. dirk grunwald pur-ee ! uiucdcs ! grunwald grunwald.uiuc@Rand-Relay (CSnet)
knutson@ut-ngp.UUCP (07/20/83)
The past few months of Byte magazine have carried a detailed description of NAPLPS. I believe the series was three months long and started in April.
brucec@orca.UUCP (07/21/83)
Can anyone tell me anything about NAPLPS (North American Presentation Level Protocol Standard)? I'm especially interested in finding out where I can get references or specs... Where to begin? First off, the draft proposed standard itself is available from ANSI (the American National Standards Institute) via X3 Secretariat/CBEMA) 311 First Street, N.W. Suite 500 Washington, DC 20001 for some number of dollars (ten, I believe, but don't quote me). The standard is called BSR X3.110 . I'd send you a copy, but it's roughly 150 xeroxed pages, and it's the version before the last set of changes. Note that this is not yet an approved national standard (hence the "draft proposed"). The current status is that the first public review period of four months has been completed, comments from this period have been responded to, and changes made to the standard in response to comments. There will now be a second comment period of two months for commwnts on the changes. The responsible ANSI committee expects an approved ANSI standard by the end of 1983. BUT, before you rush off to get a copy of the standard, think about why you need it. The standard is long, and the language is very dense (make that obscure). I've been working with it for a year and a half, and there are still sections I have to go back to and reread if I wamt to understand them at all. I suggest that the first thing you do is read the 4 part article in BYTE (Feb through May, 1983) that described NAPLPS. It was written by two of the ANSI committee members, at least one of whom to my knowledge was one of the implementors at Bell. While there is some discussion of futures, it is primarily a technical article, intended to explain the standard to people unfamiliar with it. Also, Intel may or may not sell you a manual called "Intel's Guide to Understanding the ANSI Videotex/Teletext Presentation Level Protocol Syntax (North American PLPS)" (whew ...). The qualification is because I'm not sure that the manual was ever officially released. It contains a slightly old version of the standard, plus some text to try and explain some of the more obscure details. Although his name is not on it, Seth Catlin deserves a lot of credit for unscrewing the inscrutable when he wrote the manual. The order number, when I saw the preliminary version, was 145412-001. It's too late in the day to start a tutorial on the standard now, but if I am deluged by requests, I'll put something together for this newsgroup. While we're talking about it, I want to remark that the subject of graphic standards is a good topic for a discussion here. I know we have people from Brown Univ. on the net who were involved in the ANSI committees, and I know of several other organizations on the net which were involved, if not the individuals at those organizations. There must be other people who at least have opinions on, for instance, GKS versus CORE. That ought to be a good topic to start off with. Anyone out there who has implemented a GKS package care to comment on its good and bad qualities? Bruce Cohen UUCP: ...!teklabs!tekecs!brucec CSNET: tekecs!brucec@tektronix ARPA: tekecs!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay
dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (07/22/83)
What I'd be interested in knowing is whether this proposed ANSI standard is significantly different from the AT&T NAPLPS, dated May 1981. /Steve Dyer decvax!wivax!dyer sdyer@bbn-unix