Re: LYNX-DEV A dummy packet driver for Lynx/DJGPP

[Michael Sokolov]

   Nelson Henry Eric <address@hidden> wrote:
>I wonder how much I should play up the use of this driver, should it be
>more, less or the same treatment given to slip8250.com and slipper.exe.
   If you want to run Lynx/DJGPP netless, you should use NULLPKT (or a
better variant, if someone wants to write one) rather than SLIP8250 or
SLIPPER, since the latter have an unwanted side-effect of mucking with a
COM port. However, if you really use SLIP, you need ETHERSL (like SLIP8250,
but provides Class 1 interface that WATTCP and most other DOS TCP/IP stacks
require) or SLIPPER. Note that you can't use SLIP8250 for real SLIP with
Lynx/DJGPP, since it doesn't provide Class 1 interface. Also, if the
terminal server you're connecting to supports CSLIP (SLIP with VJ header
compression), you can speed up your connection by using CSLIPPER. It's just
like SLIPPER, but implements VJ header compression. An editorial note: I
personally find SLIP superior to PPP. People often say that PPP is faster
than SLIP because it supports VJ header compression. Well, they are just
PLAIN WRONG, since SLIP also has a version with VJ header compression,
called CSLIP. On one of the ISPs I use, a tech support guy was telling me
with absolute assuredness that PPP is faster than SLIP, and no matter how
hard I tried, I wasn't able to convince him about the existence of CSLIP,
even though that same ISP's terminal servers support it... These people are
so saturated with bleeding edge technologies... What a pity that this is
not the Soviet Union in the 1930s and that I'm not Joseph Stalin, I would
love so much to send all these bleeding edge technology advocates to
gulag...
   Getting back to the topic, the only caveat with SLIPPER and CSLIPPER is
that they seem to have problems with COM ports and internal modems set to
high IRQs, even IRQ 9. Telling the driver to use IRQ 2 when the modem is on
IRQ 9 didn't work either (at least for me). Well, that's understandable.
Although system ROM BIOS redirects IRQ 9 to IRQ 2 if the former is not
hooked, this is often of no help, since the program won't know to unmask
IRQ 9 in the second PIC.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: address@hidden