🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <326108E9.3A82@worldnet.att.net> Karen Chiu <chiu-scharf@worldnet.att.net> writes:

   Doug wrote:
   >                                     Also, PNP does NOT work well on
   > networked PCs. 

   The Plug and Play Standard has nothing to do with networks, other than
   the newer network adapter cards ARE plug and play.

But most network operating systems, i.e. SCO Unix, Solaris, and so on, do not
support PnP peripherals.  Linux supports it now, but you have to go out of
your way to find the necessary utilities.  

Also, it's an enormous hassle if you're mixing PnP and old peripherals; you
have to go in and fiddle with interrupts in such a way as to satisfy all the
constraints.  This usually means you can't add as many cards as you wanted to,
because PnP eats up interrupts for devices you're not using.

   > It is very difficult to get PCs using different versions
   > of operating systems to talk well together.

   Um, no. It is a simple task to network Windows for Workgroups 3.11,
   Windows 95, and Windows NT systems together. No server is even
   necessary. 

I notice a distinct lack of Win3.1 in this list.

   What IS difficult is getting computers using completely different
   operating systems to network together using real networked applications
   (not just e-mail). 

It's also simple, even trivial, to get computers networking together if you
stick to TCP/IP.  Any old 386 or higher can be a server using Linux or
FreeBSD, and you can run mail, news, WWW, FTP, telnet, the networked X Window
System, NFS, ... you name it.  There's even a free SMB server (Samba) and
appletalk server (forget the name) so you can network your old PC's and Mac's
without having to put a real operating system on them.

You do have to spend money, unfortunately, if you want to run X or NFS on your
PC or Mac.  

                      Note that Apple will be offering  Windows NT for the
   Mac next year, mainly due to the networking issue

Thereby becoming just another clonemaker, but that's another story.

                                              There are some cross=platform
   network applications like Lotus Notes.

As I mentioned, any TCP/IP based application is inherently cross-platform, and
many are available for free.  Notes is hardly something I'd consider when
deciding which computer to get for a 4-year-old, and I don't think there's any
other network application that gives a family as much the Web, which is
cross-platform and free.
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