BL>    I think Paul's system is the forerunner of a new way to use the
 BL> Internet. In using UUCP technology, we can expand his net
 BL> internationally at no cost... because the technology exists. The next
 BL> step is to write software that makes it easy, and the step after that
 BL> is to improve the UUCP system... software driven.

 i am afraid bob that you dont know much about the internet. uucp has
nothing to do with it. uucp is a part of unix, it is the smallest easiest
way of transfering data between unix systems. since most of the connected
systems on the internet including isps are unix systems, it represents a
way of getting very basic internet services.

the internet itself uses ip for the transport of data. this is also a
fairly simple protocol, but a couple of orders of magnitude more complex
than uucp, but then it has to be because once the data gets into the net
itself, it has to travel by a variety of systems.

i have an account on ozemail, i dont use it much because it costs me money
whereas i can log on through work for free. i still keep my mail address
there active as it gives me an address that isn't connected to my employer.
when i collect mail from there, i send a request packet from my laptop at
home over a serial ppp connection to the office in north sydney, where it
goes into the 3comm acessbuilder, god knows what is in that, it has 5
modems on one side and a 10base-t connection on the other. the packet
travels via the ethernet system to the novelle server, and then onto an 8k
digital leased line to cork in ireland. there it goes through various
servers and out onto a 256k leased line to the states. at company hq there
is a veritable nest of servers (unix, novelle and nt) to pass through, then
the company firewall, and the gateway onto the us backbone. i think that it
travels to nasa via several routers, maybe over token ring and ethernet
links and finally either via telstras broadband link back across the
pacific or by ozemails own 4 meg line back to north sydney. then of course,
the packets with my mail make the same trip in reverse.

the data travels all the way by ip same as all the other internet data,
never once using uucp. the ip gets encapsulated in other datagrams to
travel over the various physical links that it uses, and it, itself
encapulates the tcp packet that encapsulates my data. very complex, but it
does allow just about anything to connect to anything. after all, the
internet is the inter-network, the network of networks, and ip is the glue
that holds them together.

i am attempting to learn it because our company is releasing products into
that area, it is big and complex and uucp is just one tiny peripheral
corner of it. when you think about it uucp doesnt really give you anything
that you didnt have under fido, it is just another point to point serial
connection, if you want to get the big prize of communication independent
of distance then you have to come to terms with the basic transport
mechanism of the net. you can use it to send just about anything you want,
but you have to use their basics, they aint going to change for you.

keith
@EOT:

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