Re: symbolics on different physical networks

[Albert Boulanger <ABOULANGER@g.bbn.com>]

We have tried on and off to do this. There are two protocols for
namespace involved: namespace and namespace-timestamp. Namespace can be
done on top of TCP, and namespace timestamp could be done on top of UDP
since it is a datagram style of transaction. However there is another thing
that enters, who-am-i, during the initial boot process. I believe it is still
the case that symbolics uses Chaos for broadcasts, and has never used TCP to
orginate TCP/IP broadcasts. (Also these bradcasts would not go through the
gateway.) So, your machine can't find out who it is. It looks like one
could set it up so that one does not use braodcast to do who-am-i but there
is another problem. Symbolics has prewired (although still in the software,
but it looks hairy to untangle) the primary network to be chaos. This I think
would have to be replaced with TCP/IP AND a non-broadcast who-am-i transaction
set-up.

Albert Boulanger
BBN Labs
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