earlier today Holger at Rebol wrote;

>I am afraid this kind of functionality is WAY outside of the scope of
REBOL. It
>belongs into the operating system, really. What REBOL could do, at least on
>some platforms, is to tell the operating system to take an Internet
interface
>online. In Windows this would be equivalent to double-clicking on the
>corresponding "dial-up networking" icon. On the Amiga it would mean sending
>an ONLINE command to the ARexx port of your TCP/IP stack. In Unix it would
>mean executing a shell script.

>All of the configuration (user name, password, phone number, modem
settings,
>serial port speed, IP addresses, PPP settings,...) would have to be made
ahead
>of time though. These things are highly platform- and ISP-specific.
Speaking
>from a little bit of experience.... :-)

surely Rebol already does some of these things, for example the SEND command
invokes a "dial up networking" on windows platform if the CONNECTED? command
returns "False", the basis of this type of functionality is there in the
Net-Utils.

Regarding configuration details presumably these are READ from %User.r ?

Rebol does not have to implement this functionality itself, I agree a lot of
these
things are platform and ISP specific, and yes are best carried out by the
operating system, but is that not what Rebol does in a lot of instances
anyway ?

For instance in Rebol/View the 'SHOW, 'VIEW & 'FACE commands etc. are a
common example of Rebol platform agnostic command specifications which pass
details to the underlying windowing system. They are wrappers around
platform-specific graphic commands like Win32-GDI-MFC on Windows operating
systems and X-Libraries on Linux-Unix like systems.

The whole of Rebol is basically a single unified language & Interpretation
Specification implemented locally on various multiple operating systems
using wrappers around native system commands & functionalities, Correct ?

The functions requested here ie CONNECTED or DIAL are not that earth
shatteringly complex, all we want is implement these Rebol Words / Functions
in a way that is consistent across operating systems.

For instance DIAL: sureley Rebol "could" invoke the PHONE-DIALER say on
Windows and pass the configuration details & instruction which could be
'READ from a seperate file. Rebol does not have to implement all this
functionality within itself - merely agree a unified Definition & Structure
for these Words / Commands and implement them using whatever methods are
appropriate for each specific operating system.

Mark Dickson

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