TCP/IP Help Needed

["Jon L. Spear" <jspear@blackbird.afit.af.mil>]

I'm just a beginner, so please have patience if this is well known stuff...

I'm trying to get a Symbolics 3600 program (common lisp, current version
of Genera (I'm at home, so can't check) 7.0 I think?) to communicate with
a server process running on a VMS VAX (VMS 4.6, Excelan ethernet board,
Fusion TCP/IP software), but I don't quite know where to start.

I can telnet or do remote file accesses from the Symbolics to the VAX, and
can FTP from the VAX to Symbolics OK, so I think the namespace, software
and hardware is mostly working OK.  I can compile and run the usual
sender/receiver examples on the VAX and go between two VAXen or between
a Sun 3 and the target VAX.

I can read the Symbolics networking books and get very confused. The functions
and variables mentioned seem to be there, but how do I put them together
to open a logical link to my server and start sending and receiving
messages? Can I do other processing while polling to see if a new message
has arrived or have a demon process that handles the incoming messages
while other things are running?

Does anyone have an example sender/receiver/echo sort of example program
for the Symbolics they could send me? Please email to me directly since
I am not yet on the mailing list.

Thanks,
	Jon Spear, Confuser Engineering graduate student
	jspear@blackbird.afit.af.mil (new address, supposed to work)
	jspear@afit-ab.arpa (same machine, old name, also supposed to work)