NFS client software for IBM PC

[Graham Carpenter]

Sorry if this is repeated but we've had some problems with UUCP and I don't
know if this got out before.

I am posting this article here because I believe it will be of interest to a
wider audience than just Sun and IBM PC users.

We have just received from our Sun salesman a photocopy of a glossy brochure
which describes a 'soon to be available' product. The product is NFS client
software for the IBM PC. This allows you to take your PC with say one floppy
drive, boot up the NFS, and use the filesystem of any Unix box running as an
NFS server as if it were an MS-DOS hard disk on your PC. To quote from the
glossy:

".... PC-NFS includes mechanisms that map NFS filenames to MS-DOS filenames.
This name mapping allows MS-DOS utilities and applications to manipulate any
files on an NFS server......  PC applications, batch files, system utilities
can operate unchanged on NFS files, no new command language or programming
interfaces are involved."

PC-NFS also includes telnet so you can use the PC as a vt100 terminal, and
also traps print calls and saves output for spooling to a network printer.

The software is currently written to use Sun's own ethernet card for the PC.

Since most US written software tends to get released over there before it
reaches the UK, is anyone out there already using this product? If so, would
someone please post a review of the software and give some idea of the cost of
the software and hardware.

Also I'd be interested to know if any of the ethernet card manufacturers are
implementing the same software for their boards, and when we may expect to
see the software available.

In the same glossy brochure there is a description of a (less interesting to
me) product called SUN IPC (Sun's Integrated Personal Computer). This is a
co-processor board for the Sun which contains an 80287 processor 1.2 Megs of
memory and the hardware to drive a floppy disk (the disk itself is optional),
and allows you, amongst other things, to open an 'MS-DOS' window in Suntools
and run MS-DOS applications which use the AT colour graphics adapter, the AT
mono adapter or the Hercules mono adaptor.  Any comments on this product?


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| Graham J Carpenter.            |                                             |
| Dept of Electrical Engineering | ARPA:  graham%ee.brunel.ac.uk at ucl-cs.arpa   |
| and Electronics                |                                             |
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