crosson@cam.nist.gov (Bob Crosson) (06/03/89)
We have installed a Rolm telephone system that supports asynchronous data communications. We also are becoming extensively Ethernetted with a backbone network and routers connecting individual Ethernets. There are terminals and PCs on the Rolm system which use that system's modem pool to access external bulletin boards (usually based on PCs). We want to move that modem pool (or create another one) to the Ethernet system so that PC users don't need both Ethernet and Rolm connections to function. But there is one problem with this; Ethernetted PCs that can get to a modem pool - whether it is via the Rolm system or not - have trouble accessing external bulletin boards and transferring files. This is because the bulletin boards use Xmodem, Ymodem, or something else for file transfer data integrity and usually are not FTP servers. So my question is, is there some application that can use TCP/IP to get to a modem pool (usually connected to the Ethernet through a terminal server arrangement), can talk to the modems to place a call, can support a virtual terminal type session after the call is completed, and finally can transfer files using an appropriate protocol? Kermit/Procomm/etc. do all of this now except for the TCP/IP part. Could they be modified to do something like talk to a packet driver to do this? I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has solved this problem. Thanks in advance. Bob Crosson crosson@cam.nist.gov