Warning on Excelan ethernet stuff for V/386 & Merge

[bae at ati.tis.llnl.gov]

WARNING
The Excelan 205T ethernet board and EXOS 8014-01 software problems:

I am running Microport System V/386 and DOSmerge on an Zenith 386 with
Excelan ethernet board and their TCP/IP software.  I expected to run
TCP/IP software to allow remote users to rlogin to my machine and run
DOS or UNIX programs via DOSmerge.

FLAME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WORDS OF CAUTION:
The advertisements that claim Berkeley UNIX compatible socket library, etc.
are untrue and misleading.  The EXOS software does come with an assortment
of "r" utilities and "ftp" and "telnet" - that's great.  The problem is that
their networking library - sockets, etc. - are NOT compatible with the BSD
UNIX socket library functions.  Sure, they provide "socket" call, but it
takes different arguements.  In fact, they are not providing calls such as
"bind", "listen", insisting on that you use their "socket" call with
parameters to indicate "bind" address and "listen" request.  Their "connect"
also takes different arguments (one less).  They don't have calls like
"gethostby*()", "getservby*()", and they don't even support /etc/services
file.  The whole point is this: If you claim that you support Berkeley
compatible socket library, your software should be able to handle all
Berekeley socket related programs without source code modifications.  For
instance, I EXPECT to copy over "sendmail" and compile it with DAEMON flag
on without ANY problem related to the socket calls.

Excelan software definitely is NOT compatible with the semantics of socket
based networking programs in Berkeley UNIX.  Porting to their lib. can be
done - but only after irritating conversion of function calls and source
code modifications and after writing your own /etc/services interfaces
calls like "getservbyname()", etc....  DISGUSTING!!!!

Another major problem with their stuff is that, unlike their earlier
claim that everything works perfectly fine with my above mentioned
configuration (I verified this with their representatives before purchase),
when I go to init state 3 to run the TCP/IP and put machine on the network
here, DOS merge is disabled!!!  No DOS availble while networking!!!  This
defeats the purpose of my purchase!!!  What's more?  The virtual console
screens are no longer active; you can only use one virtual console - the
real one, and no other ones work - they just freeze!!!!

Even in the documentation (release note), they mention that the package
works with Merge/386 from LOCUS.  My microport DOSmerge is the same !*&%$
software, and it doesn't work with the package.

Another problem with Excelan is their lack of consistency.  Before I purchased
my ethernet board I specifically asked them if they offer STREAMS based
device driver for their board that work with generic AT&T networking
extension stuff like TLI library and their TP4 or TCP/IP STREAMS protocol
modules, RFS, and so on....  They said YES.  Even more, they said I should
get a copy of such software (device driver) along with my package of board/
TCP/IP software.   I didn't.  And now they're telling me that they are
currently developing such software and I am not to expect such a thing.
^&%$%$#@ that!

FLAME OFF

I hope that somebody at Excelan reads this.
Hwa Jin Bae
Control Data Corp.     bae@{ati,aftac}.tis.llnl.gov        (Internet)
4234 Hacienda Drive    {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg}!lll-tis!bae    (UUCP)
Pleasanton, CA 94566   hbae at plseca                         (smail)