WHAT IS TSLIP?

Tslip is an implementation of Internet Protocol over Serial Lines
(SLIP) for SVR4, providing transparent dial-out on demand, automatic 
disconnect during idle periods, modem sharing with uucp/cu/getty, as well as
support for permanent links using modems or direct lines.  VJ header
compression is included.  Modem dialing uses Taylor UUCP.

Tslip was implemented by Jim Avera (jima@netcom.com), combining a new
daemon, Taylor UUCP dialing code, and core driver and utility code from
Roe Peterson, Sudji Husodo and Van Jacobson.


HISTORY

Once upon a time, SVR4.0.x vendors like ESIX advertised slip support with
auto-dial.  Then everybody found out it didn't work, and vendors were
not anxious to fix it.

The slip implementation by Sudji Husodo and Roe Peterson was freely available
on ftp.tcp.com and uunet.  This software supports dedicated, manually 
established connections which do not require login chats.

Various commercial providers began selling dial-up SLIP service at moderate 
cost (e.g., $2/hr).  To use these services, a client machine must dial the 
server and log in, after which the line is converted to a slip interface.  
This really requires the kernel to support dial-out on demand, transparent 
to IP, and some means of breaking the connection when not needed, to control 
costs.  It also needs login chat script support ala uucp.

Meanwhile, Ian Lance Taylor wrote a free uucp package, now part of GNU, which 
is used by many sites to replace vendor-supplied software because of higher
performance.  It can be built to use the configuration files from older uucp 
software, including V2 and BNU (HoneyDanBer).  Taylor UUCP sites
do not welcome new and different control files for slip or other 
dial-out functions.

Tslip is the marriage of Taylor UUCP, existing core driver software and
a new dialer daemon.  Dialing and login is controlled using the same 
configuration files as Taylor uucp.

Taylor UUCP source was not copied to make tslip.  Instead, tslip is built by 
linking in object code from the Taylor UUCP build directory.  A small patch
must be applied to the Taylor UUCP source before compilation.  The patch
has no effect on uucp operation.  This approach should make it easy to
merge future (or locally customized) versions of Taylor UUCP with tslip.

(9/10/93)

/*..........................................................................
 . Copyright 1993, Jim Avera.  All Rights Reserved.
 . 
 . This program contains new material owned by the above copyright holder, and
 . may also contain portions derived from existing works used by permission.
 .
 . You are prohibited from copying, distributing, modifying, or using this
 . file (or the portions owned by the above copyright holder) except as 
 . described in the file "COPYRIGHT" which accompanies this program.
 ...........................................................................*/
 @(#)HISTORY_OF_TSLIP	1.1 (30 Sep 1993)
