🚀 go-pugleaf

Stephen R. Savitzky wrote:
> 
> 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.

The number of people giving their kids a machine running Unix or a derivative,
can probably be counted on less than one hand.

Anyone running Unix is certainly intelligent enough to figure out DMAs, IRQs,
and I/O addresses.

> 
> 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.

You can go into the device manager and remove devices you're not using, then
freeze the configuration so PnP doesn't put them back next time you power up.
I had to do this with my sound card with SCSI.
 
>    > 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.

Windows 3.11 will also network fine with NT & 95. But it is true, as you stated, 
3.1 will not. The upgrade to 3.11 is pretty inexpensive.

Lest anyone think that this thread has diverged from its original purpose,
I don't believe it has. The number of multi-computer families is rising
as often parents using one machine for business or work, don't want the
kids messing with it. Yet they want to share expensive peripherals like
printers & scanners. A lot of houses have sufficient numbers of twisted
pairs in the walls to install 10BASET networking without much trouble
(a hub isn't even needed if it's only two machines).