Will@cup.portal.com (Will E Estes) (12/02/90)
I would be interested in getting some feedback from others about how easy it would be to build an application programmer interface (API) for an application that could sit on top of NetBIOS and work with many different network operating systems. The project in question involves client software that resides on DOS as a TSR. The project is to build an interface between the TSR and a printing device that resides on the server. The servers will be Netware 286/386, Banyan VINES, and OS/2 LAN Manager. The protocols supported will be SPX/IPX for Netware and NetBIOS for other systems. So the questions are: 1) Could you build a single DOS client that would use SPX/IPX to interface to both Netware 286 and Netware 386 via SPX/IPX? 2) Would the server portions for Netware 286 and Netware 386 require substantially different programs since one would be a VAP and the other an NLM? 3) Could you build a single DOS client that would use NetBIOS to interface to any network operating system that used a NetBIOS interface? 4) Could you build a NetBIOS-based server that would easily port to many different network operating systems by virtue of NetBIOS being common to all of those systems? I have heard some stories about NetBIOS implementations from different vendors being incompatible. Which are the ones that do things non-standardly? Thanks, Will Estes (sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Will)