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        Communications    Proposal


    To provide:

 * Least-cost routing of electronic mail via auto-dial modems over
   normal telephone lines between all LMI operations centers that
   have at least one LAMBDA-PLUS.

 * Reliable continuous network communications between
   - LMI Andover Facility
   - LMI Cambridge Facility
   - MIT and arpanet.

 * Maximally economic utilization of resources of workstations, printers,
   disks and timesharing computers in the LMI east coast facilities.

 * A model system in-house that will be similar to what our customers
   will ideally want to have.

 * Use of our own equipment for these purposes will enable us to see 
   first-hand any reliability problems our customers may be having.

    Implementation:

 * The least-cost routing of electronic mail can be simply accomplished
   by utilizing the UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) facility that
   comes with every LAMBDA-PLUS.
 
   - Suitable auto-dial modems (such as a Hayes smart modem or equivalent)
     need to be purchased.

   - These need to be connected to the LAMBDA-PLUS, ideally through an MTI.

   - Technical representatives need to be trained in setting up the
     tables of phone numbers and time-of-day-to-transmit information.

   - These tables and mailing-list information need to be coordinated,
     presumably through US mail as a bootstrapping procedure.

   - Administrative personal such as secretaries need to have H19's
     to connect to the LAMBDA-PLUS so that they can send and receive mail.

   - Use of MacIntosh and IBM pc's in a network hooked up to the LAMBDA's
     is also a possiblility.


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          Communications    Proposal

  * The cost per page of printing and the cost per byte of disk
    (counting real cost, maintanence, etc) is much less, and the
    quality much greater when you have a few large well-maintained
    printers or disk than it is when you have many less-used
    smaller printers and disks.

    - This is addressed in a most excelent fasion by the TCP/IP software
      available on the IBM PC that customer support has a copy of now.
  
    - Files may be queued to be printed via the ethernet using a printer
      that LMI is an OEM for: the imagen. The queuing process is much
      faster than the actual printing, which would otherwise tie-up the
      IBM-PC for the entire length of printing the document.

    - A larger, cheaper, and faster amount of disk space is available on
      mainframes and minicomputers such as the VAX. This resource can be
      shared in two ways using the TCP/IP software on the IBM-PC.
     
       + Via an ETHERDISK simulation. E.G. Disk "D:" would actual reside
         in an area on a much bigger disk on the VAX.

       + Via the TFTP, a file-transfer protocol. This allows data and reports
         to be kept on a central file server that all workstations can
         access.

    - Backup of data to tape is much faster an more reliable on a minicomputer
      such as a VAX than on a microcomputer.

 * Transmision of files between IBM-PC's and LAMBDA-PLUS, VAX,
   can take place via dial-up modems using a procedure that is not much more
   complicated than the use of the FAX.

 * Cambridge-MIT communication takes place now using UUCP.

 * Propose to have an additional line between LMI-Cambridge and MIT Technology
   Square, to connect to an arpanet TCP/IP gateway. This would give LMI a link
   that is conceptually on-par with that of Symbolics, except at a much
   lower cost and speed.

 * The serial line between Andover and Cambridge could run UUCP, CHAOSNET, 
   or TCP/IP. Duplicating the MIT-designed serial protocol for TCP/IP
   (which presently runs on IBM-PC's and PDP-11's) would be a good thing to do.

 * An ETHERNET loop should be run all over the Andover facility.
   
    - All of the companies local serial and network communications needs
      can be met either directly with Ethernet, or via Ethernet/Serial
      gateways which either are or can be implemented on the available
      hardware: IBM-PC, PDP-11, VAX, LAMBDA-PLUS.
 
    - Hardware we have that has direction ethernet connection capability at this time
      includes:

      + LAMBDA

      + VAX

      + IBM-PC

      + LMI LASERPRINTER (LASER2, OEM IMAGEN).



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Immediate practical steps to take:

  * A 56Kb line from Andover<->Cambridge.
  * Port the BRL IP gateway code (written in C) from the pdp-11 to the NuMachine.
    This port uses newly written code by BobP and Pace for the development of
    stand-alone operating systems on the 68000.
  * Modify a serial port of the QUAD VIDEO card, or build a special purpose serial
    card, perhaps by adding a UART and MICROPROCESSOR to a DEBUG card, to
    support the 56kb syncronous data stream.
  * Set up three machines, (or dedicate three 6800 processors in other machines)
    to be network gateways in Cambridge, Andover, and MIT.

Results:
  * A reliable network between the two LMI facilities.
  * A reliable access to MIT.
  * Arpanet community visibility.

Bring up the Seagateway from Standford:
 * Make an 8-chip multibus card as per stanfords wirelist.
 * obtain the SUMACC Mac C cross development kit (which is based
   on our own NuMachine C compiler of course).
 * port standfords TCP/IP-appletalk gateway software to our own 68010.

Results:
 * Allows internet UDP access to the Applebus.
 * MacIntosh...
 * laserprinters...
 * MacMail...