[TRLog] TR and Internet Spots

[Robert Brandon]

Unfortunately, TCP/IP connections would be a lot harder.

Serial ports are a standard interface that go back to the dawn of time and
have full support in DOS.  On the other hand, there are many hardware
variations that people use to connect to the Internet:  modem on an ISA bus,
modem on a PCI bus, Ethernet on a PCMCIA card, Token Ring on USB, etc., etc.
I expect that a lot of new hardware doesn't include DOS drivers anymore.
It's quite a can of worms when you look at it all:  boot the machine, load a
DOS driver for the bus (if other than ISA), load a DOS driver for the
network card/modem, load a TCP/IP stack for DOS, load a DOS interface to
your Internet Service Provider (good luck on this one), log on to your ISP,
and finally load TR and hope you have enough conventional memory to work the
contest.

I think the only real option would be to run on top of Windows with some
utility that could present a TCP/IP connection as a serial interface.
(Anybody heard of such a thing?)  I think this is possible in Linux.  As I
understand it, the current work-around is to have a Linux box connect to the
Internet and present that connection to one of its serial ports, which you
then connect to your DOS machine running TR.

I'm trying to be very nice to the guys who run the local RF cluster links
here.  8^)

Robert K5PI

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-trlog@contesting.com [mailto:owner-trlog@contesting.com]On
Behalf Of Pete Smith
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 9:01 AM
To: trlog@contesting.com
Subject: [TRLog] TR and Internet Spots



In the last few weeks I have gotten thoroughly hooked on Internet spots,
thanks to the K4JA TCP/IP connection and the seamless way that DX4WIN
handles Internet cluster connections.

I was glad that I hadn't dismantled my RF connection, though, when I set up
for FD this weekend and wanted to have spots in TR.

I have a feeling that in the next few years RF clusters are going to become
a thing of the past.  Any possibility of a future modification of TR to
permit packet connection via TCP/IP?  Or is this a LOT harder than it
looks, in DOS?



73, Pete N4ZR
No, no ... that's WEST Virginia





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