davidf@colnago.wpd.sgi.com (David Fenstemaker) (06/08/89)
Has anyone had any experience with Locus Corporation's PC-Interface product? It is used allow a DOS PC to be able to use a Unix system as a file server. It uses Ethernet TCP/IP, UDP or RS-232. You have to port some server software on the Unix side. Has any one done this port? Thanks. David Fenstemaker
latzko@pilot.njin.net (Alex ) (06/09/89)
In article <34862@sgi.SGI.COM> davidf@colnago.wpd.sgi.com (David Fenstemaker) writes: > Has anyone had any experience with Locus Corporation's > PC-Interface product? It is used allow a DOS PC to be able > to use a Unix system as a file server. It uses Ethernet TCP/IP, UDP > or RS-232. In the long distant past this product was supported by ATT as their answer to PC-UNIX networking. It ran using a weird and propriety protocol known as 3BNet. It was usable but only just! Seriously, ATT dropped support for it ( at version 2.80 ) and as is quite reasonable LOCUS wanted a real amount of real money to support it. The only fly in the ointment is they couldn't supply a TCP/IP version for the ATT servers we have ( and bletch are still using until the 386 boxes which are going to replace them are on line ) due to some contract weirdness. The biggest win it had was in the way it mounts disks. The down side is you are only able to mount one disk at a time in the versions I have seen. (the last version I have personally used is V2.85.) The biggest loss is the way it deals with printing. It doesn't print until you exit an application ( unless it is MS-Word which knows how to deal with weird networking code .) Naturally, it doesn't support NETBIOS ( why should it ? ) I have seen and used the TCP/IP version and it does work as advertised, but are you really sure a version of NFS ( either PC-NFS from SUN or InterDrive from FTP Inc ) wouldn't be a better choice. Just for the record the redirector in SUN PC-NFS is based on the LOCUS product. The guts of MERGE/386 (from LOCUS) is as far as I know also based on the PCI redirector. Currently, PCI is available as a supported product from Pyramid, IBM and ( I think ) DEC. > > You have to port some server software on the Unix side. > Has any one done this port? This normally comes as part of the package. LOCUS does this. > > Thanks. Yer Welcome, > David Fenstemaker As always if I have made a mistake I am sure someone will unleash vicious ( or even friendly ) flames in my direction with corrections. Cheers /S* latzko@rutgers.edu