Hi Brian,
good point of course, and I even thought about that myself. I'm not
sure about OS 9, but the PPP support in Open Transport exists from OT
Remote Access 1.0 on. I looked at the SDK and in fact you can do all the
handling of LCP, CCP with a connectionless endpoint. Additionally, you
could use the null modem script to force Remote Access using it as a direct
connection. However, this is all done assuming your app is a PPP client
establishing a dial out connection. As Apple states in the SDK description,
there is no support for acting as a PPP server, i.e. an endpoint listening
for incoming PPP requests and doing all the negotiation, PPP-encapsulation
etc. Here comes what they say:
"Open Transport/PPP is a fully OT-native implementation of the
Point-to-Point Protocol. It provides standard PPP functionality along with
many of the additional features common to the Apple Remote Access product
family.
The current release of Open Transport/PPP supports TCP/IP over PPP. It is
a client-only release: it does not answer incoming calls. Support for
AppleTalk, additional network protocols, and server functionality will be
included in future releases."
The other problem I found in the description is the following:
"This release of OT/PPP supports a single active PPP "port" or link and one
corresponding physical serial port at any given time. Currently, there is
no programmatic way to select a physical port and to make the association
between the PPP port and a selected physical port. The selection and
association must be made manually with the "Connect via:" menu in the Modem
control panel."
So this means that someone who would want to use my (hopefully) little app,
would first need to install all of the OT PPP files/libraries/cdevs even if
the Mac is on a permanent TCP/IP connection. (I'm not sure whether this
would be possible anyway). And second, if the Mac connects to the Internet
via modem/PPP anyway, then I cant choose the right settings for my own
little PPP-line to the Palm.
As I said, this is all for the OT/PPP 1.0 SDK. I couldnt find a newer
version at Apple's site. If you know of any other source for an OT/PPP
server SDK, PLEASE let me know. I really would like to avoid writing all
this HDLC-framing, LCP, CCP stuff I never heard of before :-)
Andreas
>>My setup is: PalmV in its cradle connected to the Mac's serial port
>>(modem). Baud rate set to 19200. Starting a web-site from Proxiweb. This
>>invokes all the data link layers (I hope). On the Mac side I currently just
>>read the raw hex data-stream from the serial port.
>>=46rom all the RFCs that I found on the topic PPP, I "assume" that PPP over
>>the serial port conforms to RFC1662 which describes "PPP in HDLC-like
>>=46raming". Perhaps this is the first wrong assumption? If I look at the
>>data-stream it starts with the sequence:
>
>Have you considered another path? Mac OS 9.x Remote Access supports PPP via
>dial-up. You can pick a port and a "modem script". Maybe you could just try
>having remote access use the port that your cradle is connected to, and
>specify a "modem script" that essentially does nothing (ie, assumes a
>direct connection). That way all the hard stuff is already written, and you
>just need to convince Remote Access to handle a direct connection instead
>of a modem one.
>
>Brian
*************************************************
* *
* Dr. Andreas Wolf *
* Abteilung Biophysik *
* Albrecht-von-Haller-Institut *
* f�r Pflanzenwissenschaften *
* Uni G�ttingen *
* Untere Karsp�le 2 *
* D-37073 G�ttingen *
* *
* http://www.biophysik.uni-goettingen.de *
* *
*************************************************
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