TCP/IP Connectivity to UNIX machines

[stevens@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Stevens)]

>As part of my neverending battle to get my TP755CE "ready for everything"
>for my sabbatical, I am trying to both understand and implement the
>ability for my TP to talk TCP/IP to both a standalone SPARC 10 and to
>a TCP/IP LAN.  I want to do this under DOS and Windows first.  My aim
>is to allow my ThinkPad to telnet and ftp to workstations on a TCP/IP LAN.

Best of luck!!! getting TCP/IP running on the Thinkpad was a most
heinous chore for me.

I am using a TP750C with the 3Com ethernet board networked to a Sun
and an RS/6000 on 10Base2.  Of the free stuff that is out there, I
use: NCSA Telnet (for telnet/ftp) and XFS for mounting disks.  In
order to communicate to the ethernet board, I use the Microsoft
protocal manager, an NDIS driver, a packet driver, and a windows
packet shim.  All of this is available free on the internet, except
the NDIS driver which came with my ethernet board.  It is a real
mishmash.  I can send you my config.sys if you want.

Kermit also does some rudimentary TCP/IP stuff, but it is pretty new
and poorly documented.  I think NCSA Telnet is more stable.

If you want, you can go out and buy a commercial TCP/IP package such
as PCNFS (recommended), IBM TCP/IP for DOS (not recommended), or
others.  This can run into hundreds of dollars, though.

You can connect directly from a thinkpad to a UNIX box with twisted
pair without a hub.  But you need a special (but cheap) cable, and
your "net" can only support the two machines.

As for SLIP/PPP and Kermit, yes I have gotten it working, but what
does this have to do with ethernet?  It is only useful over a modem.

--andy