[Nov 14, 98 - 20:41] Karl Schneider of 1:170/170.6 wrote to All:

KS> Aside from the fact that I'm rapidly approaching 'fossil' status
KS> myself, I still haven't managed to figure out just what it means with
KS> respect to communications.

Back in olden days, serial communications were one area where various
PC-like systems were different.  Rather than program in hardware-specific
routines, the mailer/BBS authors decided to write to a standard API; this
API was defined by and implemented in the FOSSILs.  That way if you could
get (or write) a FOSSIL for your hardware, you could run any FOSSIL-aware
software.

It's a pretty common scheme: NT has its Hardware Abstraction Layer, for example.

Jerry Schwartz
@EOT:

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