dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (03/13/87)
Yuc. UUCP is a *huge* program... uses thousands upon thousands of temporary files, and has a crock of a protocol. -Matt
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (03/19/87)
In article <8703131840.AA02254@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > Yuc. UUCP is a *huge* program... uses thousands upon thousands >of temporary files, and has a crock of a protocol. > > -Matt Huh? UUCP is a group of programs - the actual transfer program "uucico" is a worst medium sized. It uses two or three temporary files per transfer request to queue transfers. The protocol(s) are confusing, having been designed for more than was implemented and written in an obscure fashion. The actual transfer protocol is a windowed packet protocol similar to the X.25 lower level notions. Plusses: It works and is present on all "real" unix systems and most clones. It queues transfer requests and runs in unattended mode There is a nationwide network of uucp systems supporting mail and news with minimal entry cost. It the only affordable way of bring news and mail from a work or school system to your off-site (home) computer system. Minuses: Licensed unix software. One commercial MS-DOS equivalent package. One PD "slave" program that may evolve into something useful. Protocol optimized for 300-1200 baud phone connections - needs some work to optimize for high speed/error correcting modems. Implementation typically includes one or two irritating bugs/features. Works with the phone system, performance and reliability varies. Fairly complicated to set up the first time. Matt, pull that Ethernet cable out of your ear 8-). The perspective changes once one gets beyond the reach of the nearest arpanet connection. Seriously, what would you suggest in place of uucp? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
mwm@eris.UUCP (03/20/87)
In article <1574@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >The perspective changes once one gets beyond the reach of the nearest arpanet >connection. Get beyond an arpanet connection? Bite your tongue! :-) >Seriously, what would you suggest in place of uucp? FidoNet? ACSNet? BITNet? DECNet? BerkNet? Others, and yet others, and .... Seriously, it depends on what you're going to do with it. If you want to move files from a Unix box to an Amiga at regular intervals, I'd run kermit out of cron. Catching stuff on the Amiga end requires some magic, but it will in any case. Going the other way, I'd build something that logged into a kermit server and ran with a script. On the other hand, if you want to integrate an amiga into UUCPNet (the network of machines that run uucp), then ACSNet would be a better choice, if you can get a site to talk to you. That's unlikely, so uucp is probably the only choice. Hmm, maybe BerkNet. I can even provide a connection - until we junk it. The problem in this case (over and above file transfer) is the need for remote execution of commands. If you want to joins USENet (the network of machines that exchange what used to be net.announce), then you need to run either notes or netnews or some facsimile thereof. File transfer can be whatever mechanism you want it to be (we used to use mail, but now use NNTP daemons). Networking is a strange and mysterious thing. UUCP requires constant fiddling (except in the presence of a wizard). BerkNet hiccups. ACSNet is supposed to be the best thing since sliced bits. FidoNet (if you can get a copy) would be the perfect thing for connecting a network of Amiga BBSs up. BITNet has some really strange assumptions built in (do you _really_ want everything to look like card images?). DECNet - I was kidding, I was kidding! If you want to put your Amiga into a network of Unix boxes, get an ethernet card. If you want to put it in a network of MS-DOS boxes, get an ethernet card (and run PC/IP and PC/NFS on the MS-DOS machines). If you want to network a bunch of amiga's and don't want to pay for the ethernet cards, either get FidoNet, or start from scratch (well, maybe ACSNet, but I suspect that it wants more machine than an Amiga is prepared to give it). <mike -- But I'll survive, no you won't catch me, Mike Meyer I'll resist the urge that is tempting me, ucbvax!mwm I'll avert my eyes, keep you off my knee, mwm@berkeley.edu But it feels so good when you talk to me. mwm@ucbjade.BITNET