early desktop TCP/IP implementations (was Re: "first" computer on the internet)

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 06:41:04PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote: My recollection from 1995 is having to download a package direct from MS to use TCP/IP with WfW 3.11, but perhaps that was just clients and the stack was built-in. I never did TCP/IP dialup directly from a Windows box - I always had something "smarter" between me and the phone (like a "WebRamp", OS/68K- based dial-up appliance). I don't recall specifics, but given those version numbers, I think we must have been running MacTCP on the first Macs I used that weren't using Localtalk-only. I don't recall any specific troubles hanging a Mac off of a TCP/IP network in 1995-1996. We definitely did not have any gateway boxes (like Gatorboxes I saw at other facilities). We configured the static addresses and DNS servers right on the Macs (all of which had internal Ethernet interfaces, of course, NuBus for most, PDS slots for some). This was with at least one PowerMac (8100/av) and a wad of IIcs, FWIW. We didn't have any compact or B&W Macs around by 1995. The initial versions of AmigaDOS (1.0 for the A1000, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 for the A500 and A2000), did not have any sort of networking support from C=, but I think there were a few products from third parties one could buy. I don't remember them being very popular. By the late 1980s or very early 1990s, C= released docs on "SANA2", Standard Amiga Network Architecture, but for a number of years, there wasn't much out there to take advantage of it. Long after LAN networking was available for most contemporary desktops, it finally came to the Amiga. The SANA2 spec was more about the low-level interface between your hardware and the lowest layer of your networking stack - not quite wire-level protocol, but it was more of a standard API than anything, with the intention that you could insert some NIC-independence into the network stack. There's a tale I remember running across back in the day that dave Haynie repeatedly designed in a twisted-pair Arcnet interface based on, IIRC, the COM20020 chip (or something close) with an RS-485 media layer, but higher-ups equally repeatedly forced him to delete it. I don't know if that hardware was ever built, but I did acquire some samples and _almost_ built it. It was probably around 1991 or so, long enough ago that there might still be some debates on comp.sys.amiga.* about it and what sort of network stack to put above it. By the early-to-mid-1990s, C= came out with a less-than-universally-popular SANA2-compliant network stack and application set to share drives and printers and such. I even resold a few copies, bought from a former C= employee (Dale Luck?) who got a license to resell it himself. I think I probably have 10-15 unsold copies in the original envelopes, lying around the house. By about 1994 or so, TCP/IP networking did come to the Amiga, first for developers only and for the A2065 LANCE-chipset-based Ethernet card, then for anything with a SANA2 driver. I did get a copy of that after I bought a used A2065, but eventually, there were other stacks from other sources, like MIAMI, that would also do dialup. IIRC, MIAMI isn't SANA2, but does have drivers for all the popular ethernet cards and for dialup. I started manufacturing the GG2 Bus+ right around this time. The most popular ISA card to use was an NE2000 with its SANA2 driver and one of the TCP/IP stacks (serial and printer cards were another common use, but Ethernet dominated the interests of the buyers). Since I charged $100-$125 for a GG2 Bus+, and you could add a $20-$45 Ethernet card, it did take up two slots, but it was _much_ cheaper than an A2065. There were also drivers for WD/SMC 8013 cards and at least one other type of ISA 10Mbps card, but that solution really lost popularity when some of the accelerator cards included 10/100 NICs onboard. There was only ever one 10/100 NIC I know of for the ISA bus, an obscure and expensive one from 3Com, so GG2 Bus+ sales pretty much dried up after 1997. I use free TCP/IP with 8-bit machines all the time - MS-Kermit on top of a packet driver. I use it to telnet around various machines in my house, and to move files to/from my PC-based EPROM burner. The burner _can't_ go in a modern machine (proprietary 8-bit ISA parallel interface card), so the fastest machine I've used for that is a Compaq laptop and docking station (for the burner card and the NIC). I've also used this same software arrangement with a dual-floppy Zenith laptop and a Xircom pocket adapter, but mostly as an Ethernet-equipped portable terminal. Literally DOS + packet driver + Kermit... nothing else on the boot floppy. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 23-Jul-2008 at 20:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -74.2 F (-59.0 C) Windchill -102.8 F (-74.9 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 6.2 kts Grid 4 Barometer 667.0 mb (11122 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html