I am using the Merit PPP server to establish a PPP session from my Mac
and this is working well using non-authenticated PPP at 9600 baud.

However, I have a lot a friends at work who have PCs at home rather
than Macs.  Some are 286, but many are 386 based. Some run Dos, some
run Windows.  I would like to help these PC types get onto this
service, but I am ignorant of what software will get the job done. I
know just enough about PCs to get into trouble.

For example, I know WinQVT will do telnet TCP/IP comms over
ethernet.  Does it support PPP? Or do they need some kind of
extension for it that would enable this? Should I tell them to take
a totally different approach?  I know PCs must have good software
for this purpose.

KA9Q has been much discussed, but isn't QVT more robust?

So many questions...So few answers... help!

36 responses total.

I can't help, but I can observe that I followed the travails of those
implementing KA9Q, on an MTS conference, and was not much tempted to
expose myself to such grief (;->).

Indeed, I was hoping someone would know about PPP that would permit a
suite of standard clients to run on a PC. I am aware that windows NT
provides winsock calls. No one is running NT at home, though.
I'd be more interested in a Windows 3.1 solution.

I've followed the travails of those implementing NCSA Telnet, and came to
the same conclusion, Rane.  That said, I have both KA9Q and NCSA Telnet
running on my '286 MS-DOS machine.  I'm trying out the newest version
of NCSA Telnet but not having much luck with the EtherPPP driver (or
rather, EtherPPP runs and connects, but Telbin is unable to communicate).
  What is QVT?  Is it public domain?

QVT and/or WinQVT are shareware DECterminal emulators.  QVT/Net is a 
Windows (tm) application that supports:

        up to 15 Telnet client sessions
        one FTP client session
        one NNTP client session
        one SMTP or POP3 client session
        one LPR client session
        FTP server
        RCP server.

It supports WinSock (tm) TCP/IP socket drivers, and also supports TSR packet
drivers that conform to the PC-NFS packet driver standard, such as the many 
Crynmore packet drivers for various ethernet cards and SLIP.

I've been testing QVT/Net at 19.2 on my 20MHZ 386 with both SLIP8250 and
the new SLIPPER driver.  It seems to work fine for all but FTP, due to
performance.  I may keep KA9Q around just for large-scale file transfers.

corrections:  Thats 15 Telnet/or rlogin client sessions, and the packet
drivers are "crynwr drivers".

Does QVT require Windoze?  Is it available via ftp?  Thanx.

There are multiple versions of QVT.  WinQVT and QVT/Net require MS-Windows,
Windows NT, etc.
 
Both of these are available from the SIMTEL20 database via anonymous FTP,
as are the packet drivers (including SLFP, you know.)  SIMTEL20's current
home is at oak.oakland.edu, in the directory tree /pub/msdos.

Thanks for your response #4 Josh. It's very helpful.
I still need clarifications on a few points though.

If I tell my PC-using colleagues to get a copy of WinQVT for their
home machines runnning Windows, what packet drivers could they use
to connect PPP to Merit? I have this fully worked out for myself and
all the other Mac users, but the PC users are bugging me to tell
them how to connect up, and I was hoping there was an inexpensive
solution for them. If SLIP is supported at Merit, and would 
accomplish the same thing, I could use that info as an alternative.
Most of these people would use PPP without authentication, as
they are not affilated with U of M or Merit.

I do not know if there is a PPP crynwr compatible packet driver.

My guess is there must be, they seem to have drivers for everything else.

The last time I checked (a year ago or so), Merit supported SLFP, which
is sort of like SLIP + BOOTP bot not exactly.  A crynwr compatible packet
driver is available for SLFP in the SIMTEL20 database.  Look for it in

   /pub/msdos/ka9q
 
Crywnr *just released* version 11 of their drivers this past week.  The
update at SIMTEL20 in /pub/msdos/pktdrvr is so new they haven't updated
the 00_index.txt description file yet.  I haven't looked in their
new driver package, but I'd gues PPP is in there, because it is a
popular protocol replacing both SLIP and CSLIP.

  (they stopped supporting SLFP around August, I believe...)

There is a lot of information about Mosaic in item 5 of internet.
I would like to know if there is a Mosaic for PC Users, or is it only
for Macs? I don't own a PC, but I have a friend who wants to know,
and I can't help. If anyone has used such a program can they please
also help explain what to use for Packet drivers, and PPP on a PC?
He wants to use Mosaic over the Merit dialups, and realizes it will
be deadly slow.

I believe that Mosaic is available for Windows.

  Yes, it is...  It's called wmosaic--I think there might be some discussion
about getting it running in alt.winsock...

Thanks. I now know about the client (I thinks it's actually WinMosaic).
I have never looked in alt.winsock, though. Maybe that's where he
can get reliable info about windows packet drivers and PPP.
I'll pass it on.

I'd use mosaic, but my internet connection at work is through a "firewall"
machine.  So, unless I can find a firewall socket-to-socket transfer
program around, I'm stuck with telnetting to the firewall machine to 
then archie, ftp, or gopher.

Don't Forget Lynx. At least with Lynx you can use WWW servers, you just
have to forego the multimedia. Theres an item on this in internet.
Hmm. Maybe this item should be linked to internet, too.

Why not!?  Micros 67 linked to Internet 24.

Thanks, Jeff.

Uh...  I responded to the dos ppp question in item 5, if you want the
software that I am using, I will put it in our FTP area.

Uh....  Is QVT (share/free)ware?  If not, your best bet for a dos machine
for nonfree software that connects you to the internet is the program
Lan Work Place, by the owners of unix, novell.  It is a well put together
piece of software, but still leaves you with the problem of needing a id
from michnet.

Ah well...

Your question about QVT was answered back in response #4.  Shareware.

Since I asked this question, the people who wanted the solution have
indeed obtained Lan Work Place. One of them has Merit Auth so is OK,
the other will have to make do with Michnet exploration.

It's been a long time since anyone has entered anything here.  So I assume
that the answers above are out of date.

I've almost convinced myself that I want to do graphical WWW at home and that
it would be worth the $25 per month to izzy.  I have windows 3.1 on a 486
with 8M RAM and I was not planning to get win95 soon because I don't think
I need it and I don't think I have the hard disk space for it.

Is Win95 worth the cost and instalation time and possible new hard disk to 
get the built-in PPP support?  How good is the PPP that comes with Netscape
Navagate?  Do I have to buy Netscape at a store, or can I download it
using lynx on grex?  What other choices are out there?
What's with the current Beta version of netscape I've read about?

  If you're just getting into graphical web browsing, you might
consider Compuserve or AOL.  Compuserve's basic $10/month membership
gives you 5 hrs a month of IP service, along with a few hours of
Compuserve access.  Good deal if 5 hrs a month is all you use!
 
  Personally, I wouldn't get Win95 just for built-in PPP support.
 
  Netscape 1 and Netscape 2 beta can both be downloaded.  They
sell it for $40 in stores.  I think the Netscape 2 beta has an
expiration date of a few months, after which you have to pay.
(Not sure if you do if you're non-profit org or something; their
current pricing is free for a lot of people).  
 
  Netscape 2 has some privacy issues people are griping about
(e.g. a web site can query your browser to determine the other web
sites you've visited lately), but is fairly stable, and it adds
support for a lot of new "standards."
 
  Other choices: variants of NCSA Mosaic are included with a
lot of hardware and software packages out there.  I haven't used
any browsers I like as well as Netscape, but I've only tried
around four or five.  Microsoft Plus! for Win95 comes with
"Internet Explorer"...not sure if that's Mosaic-derived or not;
I never tried it.

Trumpet Winsock 2.x combined with Netscape Navigator 2.x and a ISP that
allows low cost slip/ppp connections has always seemed to me to be the
best way of getting inet access.  The Trumpet Winsock has worked with
every type of terminal server that I have used (Radius, Annex, USR Total
Control hubs, and the UofM's old SCP's), so I would be surprised to hear
of an ISP that is using something that will not work with it.  Once the
PPP connection is set up, you can use any of the many shareware and
freeware winsock packages available.  The best of which are Netscape
Navigator for web access and Eudora for POPping mail.  As always, the best
things on the Net are usually free.  :)

(Of course, you could always get rid of the microsoft OS's, and get
yourself a real OS like Linux.  Not only does it work better then
the others for inet access, but the entire basic package is freeware.
You cannot beat that deal! <g>)

Yeah, Linux's works well, but still requires a lot more messing with than
Windows95's PPP stuff, which works great right out of the box (if only the
rest of Windows95 were as good as their PPP stuff...).  Windows95 has a lot
of advantages over Windows 3.1, and I'd recommend getting it if you had the
hardware for it, but it sounds like you don't.  Trumpet Winsock seems to work
pretty well with Windows 3.1, from what I've seen, although I've never
actually set it up so I'm not sure what that involves.

I second the endorsement of Trumpet Winsock. It's low-cost
shareware, easy to install, works fine under Win 3.1, and you
can run any network application on top of it that's "winsock
compliant"--Netscape, telnet/ftp packages like QVT-Net, POP
mail clients like Eudora, etc. The only somewhat tricky thing
about it is writing an auto-login script to establish a PPP
connection with an ISP, but commercial ISP's probably provide
those to customers.

I've got Trumpet Winsock 2.1f going (along with QVT-Net and a bunch of
"WS-" apps) and it works okay...just okay.  Haven't messed with its
system settings at all, so there may be things I can do to speed it up
a bit; dunno.  Also got Netscape 2beta to run, though if the
performance I've seen running it over a 14.4K modem is representative,
it's not great (of course, I have the feeling a lot of the slowness is
due to the network lag or the server on the other end since my
read/send lights are off a lot of the time while Netscape says it's
downloading someting).  This is on a 486 with 8MB RAM and Windows 3.11.

My absolute best performance with PPP (via ITD's NAS) is using
FreeBSD (a Unix operating system).  For example, ftp under fbsd is
about 50% faster than it is under ws_ftp (and ws_ftp32).  But neither
winsock nor fbsd can beat a "regular" (non-PPP, non-SLIP, non-SLFP,
etc.) serial connection and Zmodem in moving bytes.  (But that's not
PPP-related :).  Haven't tried Netscape under Unix yet.

I just set up a FreeBSD box, and am looking forward to playing around with
dial-up PPP in the few days between now and when we get the 56K line put in
at work, rendering dial-up PPP kind of silly.

If you're using the UM NAS, that could explain a lot of your slowness.  I
generally find that things are quite slow going through MichNet, while I can
get pretty consistent throughput of at least 28.8 (using a 28.8 modem) through
Isthmus.

If you decide to get a PPP account from a local ISP, such as izzy, they will
provide you the software you need as part of getting started. Trumpet Winsock
is the choice for Win3.1. You can get connected for less with AOL and many
other options, but they all have hourly charges for more than casual use.
It doesn't take too much to reach the $25 level. 

Also, I haven't used AOL at all, but I understand that they don't have telnet,
which I consider to be probably the most important type of Internet access.

Lots of people feel that they can get by without telnet, though.

I just signed onto AOL, put in "Keyword = Telnet" and got a whole menu page
for telneting.  ie:  What is telnet, how to telnet, telnet, etc, etc, etc.

Hrmph...  I did not think that the AOL client had telnet capability, either.
I guess it is about time that I tried the product that I am supposed to help
support.  :)

As far as trumpet winsock .vs. a un*x ppp implementation, there is no real
comparision.  Most un*x OS's are far better then the windows kludge could ever
hope to be.  So the socket support can't help but be superior.  :)

Telnet allows you to experience the whole world of telecomputing sites
via the access you are using. Try this 'telnet 141.213.23.244' That's UM
weather. These sites are available by name also, try 'telnet grex.cyberspace.o
(grex.cyberspace.org) and you can really waste some money calling yourself.
Try 'telnet 129.22.8.32' for the Cleveland freenet and all of its 
capabilities. (telnet cleveland.freenet.org, I beleive.) You can shoot all
over the world. You can telnet from Grex, I beleive, If your dues are paid
up. You can also use the world wide webb from grex in text only mode by 
typing 'lynx http://www.(your destination here- try 'yahoo' for an 
index of thousands of sites). com, ie. 'lynx http://www.yahoo.com'!!

  Of course, all the fun happens at telnet://127.0.0.1/.   :)

Hello There are several socket for DOS: EtherPPP, KLOS, DOS PPPPD
The est is from Toni Lopez (Spain). Perhaps you should look into 
TVDOG Internet page. Regards (AW)

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