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TidBITS#239/15-Aug-94
=====================
The Internet Adapter
--------------------
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
On various different occasions I've seen postings wondering why
someone hasn't written a program to enable graphical programs that
normally require a MacTCP-based connection to work with a normal
Unix shell account. In fact, a number of these types of programs
exist, mostly from large Internet providers such as Pipeline and
Netcom, but they generally use a proprietary protocol for talking
to the host machine, which means that you can't use standard
Macintosh Internet programs such as Eudora, Anarchie, and MacWeb.
Instead you must use the graphical client software provided by the
same people who created the proprietary protocol.
I don't approve of this method of providing Internet access for
two reasons. First, and most importantly, this method limits users
to a small selection of software for any particular task. With a
full MacTCP-based connection, I can choose between Anarchie and
Fetch, Mosaic and MacWeb, Eudora and VersaTerm-Link, NewsWatcher
and InterNews and Nuntius. In fact, I may even use multiple
programs for the same thing - I like and use both Anarchie and
Fetch for different types of FTP tasks. You lose that flexibility
when you lock into a proprietary solution. Second, the Internet is
a vast and fast-moving place, and new capabilities appear all the
time, generally supported first, and often best, by freeware and
shareware programmers. If you use a specific proprietary program,
you can't use Cornell's Internet videoconferencing software,
CU-SeeMe, play Stuart Cheshire's wonderful Bolo tank game, or
check the weather with Christopher Kidwell's MacWeather. All of
those programs depend on the standard TCP/IP protocols that the
Internet relies on, and proprietary programs, useful as they may
be, generally don't give you a standard TCP connection to the
Internet.
**TIA Basics** -- Such is not the case with The Internet Adapter,
or TIA, from Cyberspace Development (due for release tomorrow).
TIA is a relatively small (about 250K) Unix program that you get
on the Internet and run on your normal Unix shell account, and it
acts as a SLIP emulator. In other words, after you install TIA on
your shell account, running TIA turns your shell account into a
SLIP account for that session. Although a TIA emulated-SLIP
account is not quite the same as a real SLIP account, TIA's SLIP
emulation is completely standard in terms of working with MacTCP-
based software on the Mac (or WinSock if you use a Windows
machine).
Just to repeat myself, with the addition of a single Unix program
that Cyberspace Development sells for $25, you can turn your plain
old shell account into a whizzy new SLIP account and use all of
the MacTCP-based software. I realize this all sounds a bit like a
Ginsu knife commercial (did I mention how TIA can cut beer cans
too?), but if the reports I hear are true, TIA should seriously
shake up the industry.
Think about it. If a provider charges $20 per month for a shell
account and $30 per month for a SLIP account, what response will
they have to an individual buying a $25 piece of software to avoid
giving the provider an extra $10 per month? Or more aptly, what
about providers that charge $20 per month for a shell account but
$2 per hour for the use of a SLIP account? Suddenly TIA could pay
for itself in thirteen hours of use for the individual, but the
provider would lose big bucks. Of course, it wouldn't be
technically difficult for the provider to outlaw (and erase copies
of) TIA, but doing that would be horrible public relations and
would alienate many users. The most rational approach I've heard
yet came from a provider who plans to support TIA (providers can
purchase TIA for use by all users on a single machine for about
$500) and charge a little more for a TIA emulated-SLIP account
than a shell account, but less than a real SLIP account.
TIA will become popular instantly at sites that either aren't
commercial or that don't have much money to buy the expensive
terminal servers that make real SLIP accounts easily possible.
Since Cyberspace Development sells TIA to individuals, suddenly
individual users have the choice of whether or not they get a SLIP
account, whereas in the past, if the machine didn't support SLIP,
that was the end of the story. I heartily applaud putting power in
the hands of the individual.
**TIA Details** -- Bear in mind that I haven't worked with TIA
personally yet, but it has been tested by many users at a large
Internet provider. Nonetheless, here's what I know about how TIA
works.
You do not get your own IP number that uniquely identifies your
Mac on the Internet while you're connected via TIA, as you do with
a real SLIP account. Instead, TIA uses the IP number of the
machine your shell account is on, and "redirects" traffic back at
you (this is the magic part). If you must enter an IP number in
some software, any number like 1.1.1.1 should do fine - it's just
a dummy address. The fact that you don't get your own IP number
means that you cannot set up your Mac as an FTP server, for
instance, since there's no IP number for an FTP client elsewhere
to connect to.
TIA's performance is reportedly good, faster than normal SLIP in
fact, and about as fast as Compressed SLIP, or CSLIP. Future
releases will support CSLIP and even PPP, and will reportedly
increase speed by ten to twenty percent. TIA doesn't create much
of a load for the host machine, although slightly more than a real
SLIP account, mostly because when you use SLIP, you're not usually
running programs on the host machine, but are just using the
network connection.
Installing TIA on your Unix shell account is not a trivial task,
since you must install the proper version for the version of Unix
running on your host machine. Cyberspace Development has ported
TIA to several versions of Unix and more are on the way. If you
don't know what version of Unix runs on your shell account,
Cyberspace Development has a simple program that can find out the
information for you, or you can look up your provider's Unix type
in a database they are building.
You can order TIA on the Internet itself if you wish, or other
mechanisms are available for those who dislike ordering on the
nets. For more information, send email to <tia-info@marketplace.com>
or connect to <marketplace.com> over the Web or via Telnet, Gopher,
or FTP.
http://marketplace.com/
telnet://marketplace.com
gopher://marketplace.com/
ftp://marketplace.com/tia/
Once your order has been filled, with your Unix account, you
retrieve the proper version of TIA via FTP, Gopher, or the Web,
and then launch it on your Unix account. (You can get an
evaluation version and test it for a few weeks - details are in
<tia-info@marketplace.com>.) Needless to say, in normal usage, you
would script your SLIP program to log in to your shell account and
then run TIA to start up the SLIP emulation, but it's possible to
do it manually as well, I imagine.
You can also get various versions of the TIA package, along with
installation help and consulting (useful for those of you who
aren't familiar with Unix) from a company called SoftAware. If
nothing else, I suspect working through SoftAware will be the
easiest way for individuals to buy a complete package and be up
and running quickly.
In many ways, TIA is a grand experiment. What will happen when
there's no need for anyone to use a Unix shell account if they
don't want to? We'll soon see.
Cyberspace Development -- <tia-info@marketplace.com>
SoftAware -- 310/314-1466 -- <softaware@marketplace.com>