This has been bugging me for years....

[dauber]

On any other platform, a program like Miami, Genesis, AmiTCP or Roadshow would be called a "dialer," because that's what it does.

On any other platform, a program like "Poseidon" would be considered a "USB driver," because that's what it is.

So why, on the Amiga, are these programs called "stacks"?? A stack is a type of memory...so are people trying to tell us that an Internet dialer is a...gawd....type of memory???

:-?

[QuikSanz]

Hi,

It's not just like a dialer because you can use it on a DSL or Cable connection and it indeed allocates a memory "stack".

Chris

[adolescent]

No.  They are stacks.  Calling a TCP/IP stack a "dialer" (although, I've never heard of that) would be incorrect.  This is definately not Amiga specific terminology.

[dauber]

Okay, that's all fine and dandy [yes, I know you can use it on DSL and cable, but remember, Miami existed before DSL and cable were available to consumers], but...it still doesn't explain "stack." [Don't ALL programs allocate stack?]

[odin]

Clickety-click.

Actually dialer is a stupid name too, I haven't used a TCP/IP stack with the reason for dialing into an ISP for years :-). In fact AmiTCP didn't have a dialer of it's own back in the day IIRC. It wasn't until Miami that the stack and the dialer were neatly integrated. Or perhaps TermiteTCP was earlier?


And some clickety-click

Hence the TCP/IP stack has nothing to do with the stack of memory application fame :-).

[dauber]

Thanks, odin! That helps with the TCP/IP portion...but that definition doesn't really explain why Poseidon is a "USB stack."

[odin]

Well, USB can I guess be split in layers too, as can the TCP/IP thingy. And googling on 'USB stack' shows that it isn't an Amiga specific term. In fact, the term USB stack probably isn't used much as in the major OSs it's seamlessly into the OS itself. If you dig back a few year in Windows you'll find that the earlier W95 (spit) versions didn't include an 'USB stack'.

Here's a link to a third-party NT4 USB stack.

[itix]

In Windows 3.1 TCP/IP stack was called Trumpet Winsock IIRC. And if I'm not mistaken it was not developed by Microsoft or part of OS.

[Trev]

Trumpet's product was popular, as it provided a winsock (Windows sockets) interface as well as a TCP/IP stack, but it was only one of many soluttions available. FTP Software's PC/TCP, Novell's LAN Workplace (and later, the NetWare client), and Microsoft's own TCP/IP stack were also popular solutions. I believe Banyan sold an IP stack as well.

Bascially, you used whatever protocols came with your NOS of choice (Vines, NetWare, LAN Manager, OS/2, some variant of UNIX, etc.), and sometimes, one of those protocols was TCP/IP. Most businesses running something other than UNIX didn't start migrating to TCP/IP until the mid to late 90's. Hell, the [extremely large and well-known] bank I work for didn't standardize on TCP/IP until 2003. ('Cause before then it was Red (Novell) vs. Blue (IBM)).

The word `stack' is used to describe any set of layered protocols, because, you know, they're like stacked one on top of the other. :-P

Trev

[bloodline]

dauber wrote:
Thanks, odin! That helps with the TCP/IP portion...but that definition doesn't really explain why Poseidon is a "USB stack."

It does when you realise that USB isn't really a bus, but actually a highly specalised network.