conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) (06/11/91)
(don't know who said this...) >>>Is it possible to use the built-in file sharing in >>>System 7.0 over a modem connection? What is required >>>to get this working (aside from two Macs running 7.0 >>>and two modems)? <3060@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> weiss@babbage.seas.ucla.edu (Michael Weiss) writes: >Seeing as how this has been asked by more than one person, I'm responding >in a post. I would assume that the only way to properly do this would be >by using Liaison on the two machines. However, I have not heard anything >in the way of Sys7 compatibility with Liaison...you may have to contact >Farallon to find this out. Farallon PhoneNET Liaison 3.0.2 works fine with System 7.0 in my experience. I get the energy to post something to this group explaining what Liaison does every once in a while. It is an _excellent_ solution (or part of one) to many of the questions that come up here. I feel obliged to remind people once more, as there have been numerous recent threads which seem to demonstrate ignorance of this product.... Liaison is probably the most flexible piece of network software that I have seen. It routes, it bridges, it slices.... Heck, I guess I don't have the energy to go into the whole thing. I will just make a few observations from my own perspective.... I have set up a Liaison router on my SE/30 at work. I dial in to it from home. My SE/30 at home can then see _all_ of the AppleTalk resources on the network at work. I can mount AppleShare volumes. I can print to any of the printers. I can see the GatorBox. This latter item is _very_ useful to me. That I can see the GatorBox means that I can also see AppleShare volumes on my VAX. Even more useful is that I can use _network_ communications programs. I have the pleasure of using NCSA Telnet 2.4b11 (MacTCP), Brown's tn3270 2.3d24 (MacTCP), HyperFTP 1.3, XferIt 1.4b1, etc.... No more serial communication program hell! Note that if I did have a desire to use a serial communication program I could use one over the Liaison connection with one of the network modems or ISDN data modules (and have the call charged to work to boot...).... And I could control my Mac or fileserver at work with Timbuktu (the "normal" AppleTalk network ver- sion, not the Remote version) if I wanted to.... There are some useful observations to make about the above setup. First, it is _very_ nice not to have to use _different_ programs at home from the ones I use at work. Second, there has been lots of talk here recently about multi-window terminal programs. Well, heck, I can have 5 telnet sessions going to various UNIX boxes, a tn3270 session to our IBM mainframe, and XferIt ftp sessions with sumex, rascal, and ftp.apple.com all at once! (And the cool thing is that most of the time I can do this with minimal overlapping of windows on my displays!) Note that I could also be using something like TheNews to read news at the same time except that some route between my AppleTalk network and the campus NNTP server keeps getting hung and I'm sick of bugging the guru who can fix it.... Note that there is no such thing as a free lunch.... It is obvious that if I set all of these programs transmitting data all at the same time that through- put on any one of the sessions would go down. However as some astute soul ob- served recently, multiple windows are often used for context. I for instance often open 5 telnet sessions to our VAX: 2 on my account, one reading news; and 3 as superuser so that I can see different directories or files or man pages as I (attempt to) fix things.... Note that it _is_ often very reasonable to be down- or up-loading something while also working away in a telnet session.... A comment about the previous paragraph. You want a ripping fast pair of modems to do all of this. The only thing that I can recommend at this point is a pair of USRobotics Courier V.32bis modems. These are 14,400 bps modems with V.42bis and RS-232 ports that can handle DTE rates up to 38,400 bps. This latter point is important, as I have noticed that the stuff that I send and receive over my Liaison bridge is compressible. I have noticed that my throughput is always between about 29Kbps and 36Kbps. Things feel pretty fast in any of the sessions that I have going. Note that I can get 850 cps downloading a file with WMAC in tn3270 from our IBM mainframe while still doing things quite reasonably in a telnet session. And this is usually on BinHexed StuffIt archives, which are a bit more compact than "normal" text files. I don't know how fast a large text file would go.... Note that 850 cps (not bps) is still reasonably fast. Lots of you are probably reading this with slower modems and software.... Oh, if you are curious about _modems_, please read comp.dcom.modems, as you will find a wealth of good information and advice there. People have been asking a few _modem_ questions here recently, and I'm not sure that they have been get- ting the most complete, correct, and timely answers they could be getting.... Oh, yeah, I used the Liaison 3.0 Scripting System to set up Liaison to use the new Courier V.32bis modems optimally. The scripting language is probably the ugliest thing that I have ever seen that could be called a programming language. It has, for instance, all of four variables, named, get this, 0, 1, 2, and 3! It does work though, and I was able to make a script that used bidirectional hardware flow control, DCD carrier detect, and ran the interface at a fixed rate of 38,400 bps. I had to add stuff to recognize the new V.32bis result codes, of course.... Note that there are a _lot_ of other slick features of Liaison that I have not even touched upon here. Check out all of the reviews in the mags over the last year or so where Liaison dusted or at least kept up with all of the $2,000 - $3,000 hardware routers.... (I am well aware that a GatorBox or FastPath has quite a few capabilities that Liaison does not, and many people here may want such a device....) Get literature from Farallon. Read reviews of Liaison. Get a copy or two for your network. It can route among lots of different net- work interfaces and hide zones and things like that. Check it out.... Note that I have no affiliation with Farallon. I am just a rabid fan of this particular product. (Got it cheap too, the last version from Infosphere which had a free upgrade to the Farallon version.... ;-) ) +---- C o n r a d C . N o b i l i ----+ | | | Harvard University | Internet: conrad@harvarda.harvard.edu | | Office for Info. 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