18-Jan-89 23:25:03-GMT,1905;000000000001
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	id AA06588; Wed, 18 Jan 89 15:25:01 PST
Full-Name: Tom Rindfleisch
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1989 15:25:00 PST
From: TC Rindfleisch <tcr@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
To: Ted Shortliffe <ehs@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Cc: Rindfleisch@sumex-aim.stanford.edu, yeager@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: ["Stephen P. Fortmann" <E5.SPF@forsythe.stanford.edu> : LANs,
        3-COM, UNIX, and BAD Advice ] 
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 18 Jan 1989 9:39:09 PST 
Message-Id: <CMM.0.88.601169100.tcr@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>

Ted, as Bill said, the problem is that 3Com uses a proprietary protocol in
their network services that is not implemented on any of the UNIX systems
around here.  Their protocol is XNS-like but customized and the details are not
available publicly.  We have avoided such vendors like the plague because of
the difficulties in integrating services with other servers around campus.

Bill's suggestion of arranging a meeting with SCRDP, ISG, and us to try to
understand the issues w/r to pragmatic, if not elegant, solutions is a good
one.  One question would be: does 3Com have any kind of translation gateway
that could connect a TCP/IP network (like the Develcon does between X.25 and
TCP/IP) or other server software that supports 3Com protocols and runs under
UNIX that would let SCRDP support internal and external communications.
Another is: are the external communication needs of SCRDP soluable through
RS232 communications from the XCom environment.

We clearly don't have the resources to get too involved with SCRDP without some
commitment of funding support from them.

Tom R.

PS: Another person we should check with is Doug Brutlag.  He bought a 3Com
network for Biochemistry and has had some of the interface problems SCRDP is
experiencing.  I don't know what Doug ended up doing about them.

18-Jan-89 23:42:35-GMT,1879;000000000001
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	id AA07057; Wed, 18 Jan 89 15:41:41 PST
Full-Name: Edward H. Shortliffe
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1989 15:41:40 PST
From: Ted Shortliffe <ehs@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
To: "Stephen P. Fortmann" <E5.SPF@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Cc: tcr@sumex-aim.stanford.edu, yeager@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Address: MSOB X-215, Stanford Medical School
Phone: 415/723-6979
Subject: Re: LANs, 3-COM, UNIX, and BAD Advice 
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 17 Jan 89 18:33:08 PST 
Message-Id: <CMM.0.88.601170100.ehs@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>

Steve,
	I have made some inquiries here about your communications
hassles and Bill Yeager of SUMEX has suggested that a 3-way meeting
with you, ISG, and someone from our networking group might be useful
in finding an effective (if inelegant) solution to your problem.  Tom 
Rindfleisch pointed out that the problem is that 3Com uses a proprietary
protocol in
their network services that is not implemented on any of the UNIX systems
around here.  Their protocol is XNS-like but customized and the details are
not
available publicly.  We have avoided such vendors like the plague because of
the difficulties in integrating services with other servers around campus.

	So.... if you would like to pursue this with a meeting, Bill
Yeager would be the one to contact about it (yeager@sumex).  Someone
on the ISG side should be brought in as well.  OUr staff cannot devote
much uncompensated time to such service-issues for other groups, but
perhaps they can help get things "unstuck" for you.  

	Once you get a sense of how quickly a solution can be achieved,
let me know.  If it is going to take awhile before you can be online
directly from your office environment, then I have no objection to switching
your wide access email account from forsythe to sumex.
	Cheers,
	   Ted


