

Re: SUN vs Lisp machine hardware differences?

    Date: Wed, 29 Jul 87 17:32:56 PDT
    From: larus%paris.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (James Larus)

    Having tried to use the "quality" Symbolics network code on the same
    network as other manufacture's machines, I can only assume that you
    are kidding.

Almost invariably, whenever there is a networking problem, the Lisp Machine is

- Example: A certain brand of UNIX workstation broadcasting TFTP connection
requests as part of its boot process. The Lisp Machine is blamed for seeing
one an complaining about it. Perhaps the Lisp Machine shouldn't complain about
it, but maybe also machines shouldn't be broadcasting TFTP connection requests
as well.

- Example: 4.2 BSD finger server not accepting requests for whois information
with the /W following the username, but requiring it to preceed the username,
even though every other operating system allows the /W to follow the name. The
Lisp Machine is blamed for not being able to whois people on UNIX machines.

-Example: 4.2 BSD FTP server returning bogus response codes. The Lisp Machine
is blamed for complaining about it. Speaking of transparent file access
through the Internet standard FTP protocol, does any other operating system
provide this feature, or do you have to rely on a proprietary protocol
promoted as a "de-facto standard" by the marketing department of the company
that came up with the protocol, all as part of their support of "standards".