Netscape (was Re: PayPal = payola?)

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Sat Jan 26 13:54:42 2002

On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Jan 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
>
> > MS TCP/IP32 still did not add support for dialup connections. Its winsock
> > only supported a local network. For a windows 3.x machine, Trumpet
> > basically was the only choice if you wanted to use a modem to connect to
> > an isp.
>
> I'm not sure you're right about that, since I used Mosaic with some
> other (non-TRUMPET) WINSOCK that I'd snagged. Further, the Netcruiser
> that was supplied by Netcom didn't require a third-party WINSOCK,
> though it was tricky (trickier than I could manage) to use it with
> other browsers. There were a couple of third-party WINSOCK modules
> that one could download on a trial basis, and I lived on those up to
> the point at which MS released Win95's WINSOCK. Making one work with
> Win32S was not trivial, since they didn't all do that.

The Netcruiser software package was Netcom only software (written in VB).
AFAIK there wasn't any way to make it work with another isp, short of
editing the program binaries. I used Netcruiser myself for a short time,
and never had any problems making it work with Netscape or Mosiac. The
real problem I had with Netcruiser was instability and latency compared to
a more "standard" winsock package like Trumpet. IIRC, at the time, Trumpet
was the only game in town. I imagine a few other winsocks were developed
soon after by others in an attempt to cash in on Trumpet's success.

Are you referring to the Win32S package that could be added to stock
win3.1/3.11? I never had a problem making a 3rd party winsock work fine
with it. I did however see many people try to load the same 3rd party 16
bit winsocks on Win95, which expected to have a 32 bit winsock for 32 bit
applications. This caused many headaches for a large number of people.

> The ICOMM software went a long way if you had only shell access,
> though. I provided the appearance of a graphical browser, though it
> did that by using shell-accessible features at the ISP, though it ran
> the graphical stuff locally, thereby giving the appearance of a
> graphical browser. It didn't need a WINSOCK, since it ran the IP
> stack at the ISP end.

I never used the ICOMM software you describe. The first TCP/IP I had
access to at home was slip. I used a unix program called slirp with
trumpet for quite awhile before I moved to a standard slip/ppp connection.

-Toth
Received on Sat Jan 26 2002 - 13:54:42 GMT