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The history of the Windows TCP/IP stack went most likely like this: IBM (NetBEUI, no TCP/IP) -> Spider TCP/IP Stack + SysV STREAMS environment -> MS rewrite 1

by zweifuss 10mo ago

The history of the Windows TCP/IP stack went most likely like this: IBM (NetBEUI, no TCP/IP) -> Spider TCP/IP Stack + SysV STREAMS environment -> MS rewrite 1 (early NT, Winsock instead of STREAMS) -> MS rewrite 2 (make win2000 faster): https://web.archive.org/web/20151229084950/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/6/19/05641/7357 https://web.archive.org/web/20151229084950/http://www.kuro5h...

kalleboo 10mo ago
It's interesting how STREAMS pervaded everything for a short while (Apple's Open Transport networking stack for System 7.5 and up was also based on STREAMS) but everyone almost immediately wanted to get rid of it and just use Berkley sockets interfaces.
- xbar 10mo ago
  Berkeley, for disambiguation.
  - kalleboo 10mo ago
    Oops, too late to edit my comment!
- justsomehnguy 10mo ago
  I still don't quite get how you should had communicate with the other systems over the network with STREAMS. With IP you have an address and the means to route the data to that address and back, with TCP/UDP sockets you have the address:port endpoint so the recipient doesn't need to pass a received packet to the all processes on the system, asking "is that yours". So if there is already some network stack providing both the addressing and the messaging...
  - fredoralive 10mo ago
    STREAMS isn’t a networking protocol, it’s an internal data routing thing some UNIXes use locally, and amongst other things to implement the network stack in it. You’d still be talking of stuff like IP addresses and the like with it. Probably with the XTI API instead of BSD sockets, which is a bit more complex but you need the flexibility to handle different network stacks than just TCP/IP, like erm…
    - justsomehnguy 10mo ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20060716013234/http://www2.linuxjournal.com/article/3086 https://web.archive.org/web/20060716013234/http://www2.linux... Sadly no images.

kalleboo 10mo ago

It's interesting how STREAMS pervaded everything for a short while (Apple's Open Transport networking stack for System 7.5 and up was also based on STREAMS) but everyone almost immediately wanted to get rid of it and just use Berkley sockets interfaces.

xbar 10mo ago
Berkeley, for disambiguation.
- kalleboo 10mo ago
  Oops, too late to edit my comment!
justsomehnguy 10mo ago
I still don't quite get how you should had communicate with the other systems over the network with STREAMS. With IP you have an address and the means to route the data to that address and back, with TCP/UDP sockets you have the address:port endpoint so the recipient doesn't need to pass a received packet to the all processes on the system, asking "is that yours". So if there is already some network stack providing both the addressing and the messaging...
- fredoralive 10mo ago
  STREAMS isn’t a networking protocol, it’s an internal data routing thing some UNIXes use locally, and amongst other things to implement the network stack in it. You’d still be talking of stuff like IP addresses and the like with it. Probably with the XTI API instead of BSD sockets, which is a bit more complex but you need the flexibility to handle different network stacks than just TCP/IP, like erm…
  - justsomehnguy 10mo ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20060716013234/http://www2.linuxjournal.com/article/3086 https://web.archive.org/web/20060716013234/http://www2.linux... Sadly no images.