digests@SIDEV.AF.MIL (Digest Mail Box) (09/02/89)
Does anyone out there have any experience with
sophisticated (ie. script language) terminal emulation packages
for MS-DOS that use the RFC 1001, 1002 compliant NetBIOS over
TCP/IP? Specifically, we have:
TRW PC2001 cards in PC/AT clones
MS-DOS 3.1+
TRW supplied FTP TCP/IP & NetBIOS
Locus SMB & MS-NET Redirector
accessing:
AT&T 3B2
UNIX V 3.2
AT&T Ethernet card
Wollengong TCP/IP
Locus SMB server
I have tried the SoftermPC product which claims NetBIOS
compatibility, only to find they do not support the RFC compliant
NetBIOS. Nor does any other company that I have been able to
contact.
Yes I know about Telnet, but some of my users don't like
it, and trying to figure out how to redo the keymapping for the
FTP TNVT program is impossible. (HEX coded pointers to
undisclosed keymap tables!)
Thanks.
ALLEN L. CHESLEY, Major, USAF INTERNET: chesley@sidev.af.mil
Functional Test Manager uucp: ?
3B2 Management Office Phone: (301)981-3137
HQ Computer Operations
ACS/Communications-Computer Systems
HQ Air Force Systems Commandjbvb@VAX.FTP.COM (James Van Bokkelen) (09/03/89)
The reason that the terminal emulation packages you talk about don't work with RFC-conforming NETBIOSes is that they are actually modem- or port-sharing packages (everyone can share a central cluster of ports), not remote-login packages. Some or maybe all would work if you attached the central port cluster to a DOS PC and ran the server end on it. In your case, going back to serial and then into the 3B would be a major inefficiency, since you already have TCP/IP on the 3B. NETBIOS wasn't designed for remote login, so the modem-sharing packages all use different proprietary application-layer protocols on top of it (which would be a major obstacle if Locus or Syntax ever tried to support them as an enhancement to their Unix SMB products). Telnet and Rlogin are public protocols intended for use direct from the PC (or another Unix system) to the 3B, and are impelented on almost all TCP/IP hosts. In the PC/TCP v2.03 "User's Guide", section 3.5, we give all the "undisclosed keymap table" entries for all keys which don't just return the appropriate Ascii value. We give similar values for the 3270 special keys in section 3.6, but (as is documented in the patch level 3 READ.ME file), they are off by 0x20 since pl 3 came out. This is because the overseas people asked me for more re-mappable values when we added the user-loadable Ascii-EBCDIC translation tables, but the documentation couldn't get fixed until 2.04 (this month). At any rate, our re-mapper is only a remapper, not a script language. Our INT 14 serial-BIOS-to-Telnet converter allows access to a number of serial packages which do contain script languages, though. With this, they can be used over a Telnet or Rlogin connection just as if they had a direct serial connection (capable of .5 to 2.5 Mbits/sec) to the host. James B. VanBokkelen 26 Princess St., Wakefield, MA 01880 FTP Software Inc. voice: (617) 246-0900 fax: (617) 246-0901