***NOTE: Many installation questions are also answered by the TIA Single User Installation Instructions, sent to you with your license code. If you need another copy, see the address listings at the end.
For easy reference, questions are broken into the following groups:
TIA runs on the computer where your shell account is located (called the "host"), just like any other UNIX software such as pine or tin. When you activate it, it sends/receives TCP/IP packets out over the net from the host's address just like those other programs. The "magic" part, as Adam Engst of TidBITS puts it, is that TIA redirects these packets back to your client computer (i.e. your PC or Mac) using the standard conventions of SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol).
Because TIA does the redirection internally, it does not require the client computer to have its own IP address. (However, your PC or Mac TCP/IP stack must still use a "dummy" IP address -- see section D).
Q: WHAT IS THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIA-BASED SLIP AND CONVENTIONAL "STATIC" SLIP?
Technically, the biggest difference is that because the client computer doesn't have a separate address, it cannot be "seen" by the rest of the Internet, and thus cannot function as, for instance, an FTP server or POP mail server.
However, from a practical standpoint, relatively few users do this over SLIP connections because these applications are much better suited to full-time net connections.
Q: HOW IS TIA DIFFERENT THAN DYNAMIC SLIP?
Dynamic SLIP (more properly called Dynamic IP) was developed to solve the same problem TIA does: how to provide SLIP without having to assign each user their own unique IP address, which is costly to set up and maintain. Dynamic IP accomplishes this by assigning user addresses from a pre-set "pool" at the time they connect, then returning them to the pool when the they disconnect.
This means a small group of IP addresses can dynamically serve a large group of dial-up users, and no user-to-address table needs to be maintained. This technique, which usually requires special hardware, has become very popular with Internet service providers.
Technically, the difference between TIA and Dynamic IP is that with Dynamic IP, users still have their own IP address. But because this address is different with each session, the practical effect is the same as TIA: you cannot use services that depend on having a fixed IP address over time (such as FTP servers or Mail servers).
Q: BESIDES THE LACK OF AN IP ADDRESS, ARE THERE ANY OTHER DISADVANTAGES TO USING TIA INSTEAD OF DYNAMIC SLIP?
Because of the way it works, there is one TCP/IP protocol (ICMP) that TIA does not support. This is the protocol used by "Ping", so "Ping" does not work with TIA. (But "Finger" does.)
Besides a few other very minor differences, TIA is completely standard TCP/IP and SLIP emulated entirely in software, so it works with almost every new TCP/IP client package, including Mosaic and Eudora.
Q: ARE THERE ANY ADVANTAGES TO USING TIA INSTEAD OF DYNAMIC SLIP?
Economics aside, there are two advantages to using TIA: first, with Dynamic SLIP, you must close and reopen all of your TCP/IP applications with each new online session. That's because each application needs to know your IP address, and it changes from session to session. This is particularly bothersome if you like to keep Eudora open, for instance, to check your mail several times a day.
Because TIA use ones consistent "dummy" IP address, this problem does not occur.
Secondly, with TIA you can switch between SLIP access and shell access in the same online session (back and forth, as often as you'd like).
Q: HOW IS TIA PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO SLIP?
Because the way TIA reroutes packets is very simple and efficient, TIA performance can actually be slightly _faster_ than SLIP. Actual mileage will, as they say, "vary with your conditions". In this case that means:
Q: I'M RUNNING TIA ON A MAJOR NATIONAL PROVIDER AND SOMETIMES EVERYTHING SEEMS REALLY SLOW. WHAT'S WRONG?
As stated above, TIA is virtually never the performance bottleneck. Conventional SLIP would not be any faster. The problem is the provider's own network performance, especially at peak load periods.
Q: DOES TIA SUPPORT PPP?
No, but PPP support is coming soon in version 1.1, which will be a free upgrade to all 1.0 owners (see below).
Q: DO YOU OFFER ANY HELP FOR SETTING UP MACS AND WINDOWS MACHINES TO SUPPORT SLIP?
We do offer a "TIA Macintosh Companion" and a "TIA Windows Companion". These can be found at marketplace.com or retrieved via email at:
tia-mac-setup@marketplace.com
tia-win-setup@marketplace.com
Q: TIA AND MY MAC/PC APPEAR TO BE CONFIGURED CORRECTLY BUT NOTHING WORKS? WHAT COULD BE WRONG?
The most common problem we see with otherwise properly configured customer setups is that they do not have a "clean 8 bit connection". By this we mean that hardware handshaking must be in use from one end to the other. XON/XOFF flow control, also known as software flow control, can not be used anywhere in the serial chain -- or SLIP will not work.
Make sure your SLIP software is set to use hardware handshaking and that you have a hardware handshaking modem cable and high speed modem that supports hardware handshaking. You might also want to ask your local sysadmin to ensure that the connection on the host side is 8 bit clean - i.e. that XON/XOFF is not used on the host side.
Q HOW CAN I DETERMINE IF I HAVE AN 8 BIT CLEAN SERIAL CONNECTION?
There is a test you can perform to see if you have an 8 bit clean serial connection.
Via anonymous FTP, in binary mode, download the file 'ascii.bin' found in the tia directory on marketplace.com. Then save a copy of this file on your unix host for later comparison:
cp ascii.bin ascii.bak
Now download the file ascii.bin to your PC/MAC using zmodem in binary mode. (It is very important to specify binary mode for zmodem since by default zmodem escapes control characters.)
sz -b ascii.bin
Now upload the result file from your Mac/PC back to the host using
rz
Then initiate the zmodem upload, in binary mode, from your PC/Mac.
Once the process is complete compare the original file ascii.bak with the test file ascii.bin:
diff ascii.bin ascii.bak
The files should be identical. If they are not then you do not have an 8 bit clean serial connection and SLIP (i.e. TIA) will not function properly. If you do not have an 8 bit clean connection please check your (client side) setup first (modem, cable, SLIP software settings) and if they check out as OK then contact your local sysadmin.
Another (simpler) test your UNIX system might support is the command 'sz -TT' which attempts to output all 256 ASCII code combinations to the terminal. You can issue this command and watch the results to see which codes get "eaten" by your setup.
One basic setting for you (or more likely the sysadmin) to check is the UNIX tty setting. The settings file (e.g., /etc/gettytab) should include a parameter (e.g., p8) to specify that the port is 8 bit.
Q: ON MY WINDOWS PC USING TRUMPET WINSOCK AND MOSAIC EVERYTHING WORKS EXCEPT I KEEP GETTING DNS LOOKUP ERRORS WHEN I TRY TO USE MOSAIC. WHY?
It is very important that your DNS setting in the trumpwsk.ini match the SMTP setting in the mosaic.ini. If these don't match - Mosaic will get DNS errors. If they do match - Mosaic should resolve domain names.
Q: I INSTALLED TIA BUT I GET "EXEC FORMAT ERROR" OR "CANNOT EXECUTE BINARY FILE" EACH TIME I RUN TIA. WHY?
This means the TIA binary you have downloaded is not the correct one for that UNIX host. The most common case we see is a customer attempting to run the sparc.sunOS.tia binary on a Motorola 680x0-based SUN workstation. This won't work since the SPARC chip is not binary compatible with the Motorola 680x0 processor.
For example: m68k-sun-sunos4.1 (from config.guess) will not run sparc.sunOS.tia. The operating system matches but the hardware platform (m68K vs sparc) does not.
To solve this problem double-check the results of running the config.guess script (described in your TIA installation instructions) with the name of the TIA binaries in the 'tia' and 'tiabeta' directories available via FTP from marketplace.com. Then download the correct binary. It is possible we do not have a TIA binary for your platform. If so please email tia-ports@marketplace.com and request a version of TIA for the platform output by config.guess.
Q: I DON'T WANT TO GET AN EVALUATION CODE UNTIL I'M SURE THE TIA BINARY I NEED FOR MY PLATFORM IS AVAILABLE. BUT I'M NOT EXACTLY WHICH PLATFORM I HAVE. HOW CAN I FIND OUT?
One of the easiest and fastest ways is to use the "Config.Guess" script from the Free Software Foundation (the GNU folks). It's available on Marketplace.com via anonymous FTP or gopher. Full instructions for using it are in a separate text file (and they're included in the Single User Installation Instructions).
Q: I KNOW I HAVE THE RIGHT PLATFORM, BUT TRYING TO RUN TIA PRODUCES A CORE DUMP. WHAT'S WRONG?
We've had this problem only with corrupted copies of the TIA binary, and the cause has always been retreiving the binary via gopher rather than FTP. FTP is a more reliable retreival method, so try that.
Q: I'M TRYING TO INSTALL A SINGLE USER EVALUATION VERSION AND I KEEP GETTING THE ERROR MESSAGE: "PROBLEM: TIA CANNOT VERIFY THE TIME." WHY DOES TIA NEED TO VERIFY THE TIME, AND WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT THIS?
Evaluation copies of TIA use public time servers on the Internet to figure out how long they should run. Unfortunately a few sites have what are called "firewalls" setup for security reasons which prevent TIA from reaching those time servers. We are sorry for the incon- venience, but that at the moment this means you may not be able run an evaluation copy of TIA within those sites. Only some firewalls will have this problem, so its best to just try the free evaluation and see if it works.
If you know you are not behind a firewall, try again later in case there is a network problem. If you are sure there is no firewall, let us know. TIA has been tried on several sites prior to release, however given the many environments on the net, there may be a problem we haven't encountered before.
Since this problem applies only to the Evaluation version, the only workaround at present is to purchase a copy and then request a refund if you decide TIA doesn't work for you (which we will gladly provide). A purchased copy of TIA should have no problems running behind a firewall, or even on an internet not connected to the main Internet, because it does not need to check the time. (Note: we are investigating other solutions to this problem but this is the only workaround at the present.)
Q: EVEN THOUGH I KNOW MY LOGIN AND DOMAIN NAME ARE CORRECT TIA GIVES ME THE PROBLEM MESSAGE THAT MY LOGIN AND/OR DOMAIN NAME DOESN'T MATCH MY CODE. WHY?
This is usually due to stray spaces, extra carriage returns, or other control or "hidden" characters being tacked on to the end of the TIACODE line. The TIACODE line should end with a carriage return immediately after the last TIACODE character.
Problems with the TIACODE usually occur when customers have uploaded the .tia file from their Mac or PC to their UNIX shell account. Make sure your TIACODE has not been truncated, added to, or changed from the original TIA License Code email message. (Thanks to J Charles Ferrari.)
Q: WHEN I START IT, TIA WORKS BUT GIVES ME THE MESSAGE: "TIA HAD DIFFICULTY FINDING THE TIME. IN THE FUTURE IF YOU INVOKE TIA WITH THE COMMAND "TIA -TIME" IT SHOULD WORK FASTER." WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
In some cases the Evaluation version of TIA can work around a firewall by using a second method of finding the time. This takes longer since TIA tries the method that works for most people first. If TIA needs to use the second method, you'll see the message above.
Invoking TIA with the "-time" parameter will use the second method first, saving you time on startup. (Unfortunately even this second method may not work with all firewalls.) Note that while TIA is searching/waiting for a time response it will seem to "hang". If you wait long enough TIA will time out and give you a message.
Q: I STARTED TIA AND NOW I WANT TO EXIT OUT OF IT, BUT IT WON'T RESPOND. DO I HAVE TO DISCONNECT MY MODEM TO BREAK OUT?
No. Type five Control-C's (Control Key + 'C' key) in succession, allowing at least two seconds between the first and last one. This will cause TIA to exit normally and return you to the UNIX prompt.
This allows you to switch between SLIP and shell access in the same session, a feature completely unique to TIA.
Q: I'M TRYING TO USE TIA VIA TELNET BUT IT DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK. WHAT'S WRONG?
TIA will work via a dial-up or telnet connection. But you must make sure that you have an "8 bit clean" telnet connection or TIA will *not* work. This means the connection must be setup to use 8 bits (not 7) and have no control or escapte characters. 8 bits may not be the default on your terminal sever but most terminal servers have commands to place you in 8 bit mode. Check the documentation for your terminal server or ask your friendly local SysAdmin.
Q: I'M TRYING TO USE TIA BUT I SEEM TO BE HAVING SOME ODD SERIAL COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS. WHAT COULD BE WRONG?
Could be one of any number of things. Here are a few items to check:
tia-tcpip-info@marketplace.com
for detailed information and pointers to documents & tools specific to this task.
Q: WHY DO I NEED SOFTWARE ON MY PC OR MAC? ISN'T TIA AN INTERNET ACCESS PROGRAM?
Unlike many commercial Internet access packages, TIA is an Internet access "utility". It does NOT run on your PC or Mac. It runs only on the Internet host computer you are connecting to.
To communicate with TIA (as with any other SLIP or PPP account), you need to run special software on your PC or Mac. This software consists of a "TCP/IP stack" at the bottom layer, a SLIP or PPP program in the middle layer, and TCP/IP applications software (like Mosaic) on the top layer.
Q: DOES EUDORA AND OTHER "POP" MAIL SOFTWARE WORK WITH TIA?
Absolutely. You will need to know the name of your POP mail server, but that is usually very easy to locate. Eudora and other POP mail clients work exactly the same way with TIA as they do with SLIP.
Q: CAN I USE NEWSREADERS WITH TIA?
Yes -- if you can read news from your shell account, you can use a graphical TCP/IP newsreader. Again, you will need to know the name of your news server (i.e. the news server accessed by your host).
Q: DOES CUSM (CE-YOU-SEE-ME) WORK WITH TIA?
Unfortunately, our first feedback is that it doesn't. We are investigating.
Q: I'VE BEEN TOLD I CAN USE A "DUMMY" IP ADDRESS OF 1.1.1.1 WITH TIA. WILL THAT WORK?
A: A question has come up recently whether it works with some versions of MacTCP. In any case, should you ever worry about this, use the address 192.0.2.1, which is within a test network that is defined as never-to-be-assigned and should work with all TCP/IP software.
Q: WHERE CAN I FIND THESE GATEWAY AND NAMESERVER ADDRESSES THAT I NEED?
We built a special feature into TIA that makes this easy: just run TIA with the "-address" parameter, i.e. type
tia -address
at your shell prompt. This doesn't start TIA, but rather has TIA query the host and report back to you the addresses of the Gateway and Nameservers that it read from the host computer it is running on.
Sometimes "tia -address" will not work, in which case you can type (from the shell prompt):
whois -h internic.net domain.xxx
where domain.xxx is the name of your "top level" domain (i.e. the last two parts of your e-mail address). This will show you the addresses of the nameservers for that domain name. Use one of those as the nameserver in your TCP software.
Q: ARE THERE ANY OTHER TOOLS TO HELP ME DEBUG THE SLIP AND TCP/IP SETUP?
For the Macintosh there is a great public domain tool called MacTCP Watcher. This is a good way to test if your TCP/IP setup is configured properly. IF so, it helps you narrow the problem down to the TCP/IP applications themselves and not your SLIP or TCP/IP configuration. MacTCP Watcher is available via FTP from ftp.farces.com, It is easy to run and has buttons to test TCP UDP and DNS Please note that it also includes a PING test but TIA does not support PING.
Q: I'M ALREADY USING PPP SOFTWARE. IF I WANT TO USE TIA DO I HAVE TO SWITCH TO SLIP SOFTWARE? AND ISN'T SLIP NOT AS GOOD AS PPP?
First, we plan to add PPP support in version 1.1 as soon as possible. Secondly, since PPP is a newer and more robust protocol than SLIP, many PPP packages also support SLIP, so you many just need to switch modes. And lastly, with the type of dial-up access most TIA users (and dynamic IP users) are doing, the benefits of PPP over SLIP are almost negligible.
Q: I'M TOTALLY CONFUSED BY ALL THIS SLIP AND TCP/IP SOFTWARE SETUP STUFF. WHERE CAN I GO FOR HELP?
You and half the planet. That's why there are at least two dozen commercial software companies scrambling to offer you a one-stop solution. After hours of experimentation, these commercial alternatives can start to look more attractive, and indeed some of them are excellent packages -- that also come with technical support.
A more economical solution is one of the many popular Internet books that include client software disks. One of our personal favorites is Adam Engst's "The Internet Starter Kit" in both Windows and Macintosh editions. It's available from SoftAware in Los Angeles at 310-314-1466 and at many larger bookstores.
SoftAware also offers Internet consulting services at $75 per hour, and they specialize in setting up accounts to run with TIA.
Finally, the net itself is full of resources aimed at helping new dial-up SLIP/PPP users, and if you have shell access, you can reach most of them. We are assembling pointers to the best ones we can find currently, and they are available both on the Marketplace.com gopher and Web menus and via e-mail (see the addresses at the end).
Q: I HAVE SLIP WORKING BUT IT SEEMS VERY SLOW. WHAT IS WRONG?
On Macintosh computers this can be due to an extension conflict. For example we have had reports of the CP DriveLight extension on a PowerMac slowing down file transfers by a factor of 2.
Also on Macintosh computers we have seen this due to the use of virtual memory or when using any extension that invokes virtual memory like Ram Doubler. To test turn off virtual memory and boot your Mac with minimal extensions. (Thanks to Steven Blacher.)
The version of SLIP and/or TCP/IP software you are using can also have a significant impact on performance. We have evidence of this with both Trumpet Winsock and InterSLIP. Be sure and check marketplace.com (via gopher or world wide web) and see which versions of software are currently recommended in our online documentation.
On any platform start with your SLIP software set to use the highest modem speed possible (e.g, 38K or 57K). Just to keep it confusing we have also heard that reducing this speed (e.g., from 38K to 19.2K) actually increased file transfer speeds radically. The moral of this story is don't be afraid to experiment with settings to improve your bandwidth! (Thanks to Kevin Daberkow)
Also try experimenting with using and not using modem compression - though for transferring uncompressed data it is better to be using modem compression. (Thanks to Tim Onders)
Indeed, since TIA's release we have spoken to numerous providers who have mixed feelings about TIA. Some feel it is an great solution for getting more functionality from existing hardware and giving more customers access to SLIP. Others feel it allows customers to access the provider's facilities in ways they were not designed for and that do not fit within their business models.
We knew this would be a controversial issue when we decided to develop TIA. But our feeling was simply this: TIA is a tool that enables easier graphical access to the Internet, and thus it should be available to as wide an audience as possible. That's why we decided to sell it to individuals as well as organizations and access providers.
Q: CAN MY ACCESS PROVIDER BAN THE USE OF TIA?
It would certainly be their legal right to do so. Whether this is the best political or economic decision is another matter.
We would prefer, of course, to work with access providers to be sure TIA can be made available to their customers in such a way that both benefit, and we are currently working on modifications that allow this. If you believe your access provider might ban TIA, encourage them to talk to us first.
Q: DOES TIA PUT A STRAIN ON MY ACCESS PROVIDER'S MACHINE?
In extensive load tests at Colorado Supernet where TIA was beta tested, machine loading was almost insignificant, even with large numbers of simultaneous users. In many cases the use of TIA on a shell account actually represents less of a processor load than the use of standard UNIX shell software such as editors and newsreaders.
Q: MY SERVICE PROVIDER USES A MENU. HOW CAN I SCRIPT MY SLIP SOFTWARE TO ACCESS TIA?
First, check with your service provider to see if they can set up your account to got straight to a "shell" or "system" prompt. This will avoid the menu.
If you can't do that, see if your SLIP software allows you to establish a connection manually. Then you can login to the menu, choose the "shell" option, and fire up your SLIP software.
Lastly, some SLIP scripting packages allow you to enter the characters needed to navigate the menu automatically, so you can just script the entire sequence.
You probably deleted some parts of the form. Please don't delete _any_ information in the form -- return the entire form as you received it. Just choose "Reply" in your mailer (the leading ">" characters are no problem), fill in the fields, and Send.
If you still have problems, mail the completed form and a second explanation message to tia-order-desk@marketplace.com.
Q: I SENT IN MY ORDER FORM A LONG TIME AGO AND I STILL HAVEN'T RECEIVED ANY RESPONSE. WHAT DO I DO NOW?
Email on the Internet can travel very quickly or be delayed by hours or days due to various network conditions. If you have waited for 24 hours and still have not recieved a response to your email order form please send a copy of the form, your phone number, and an explanation of your predicament to tia-support@marketplace.com. It is also possible that our mailer is having trouble reaching you or your site due to a typo on the form or to a configuration problem at your site.
Q: WHEN I CONVERT FROM AN EVALUATION LICENSE TO A REGISTERED LICENSE DO I HAVE TO UPDATE MY TIA BINARY?
No - all you need to do is resubmit the order form changing your X from Evaluation to Purchase and including your purchasing information. You will receive a new .tia file via email. Just replace the old eval .tia file with the new registered .tia file and you are on your way.
Q: I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD. HOW CAN I PAY FOR TIA?
We can take checks or money orders in US funds. Please see the instructions at the end of the newest Single User Order Form (tia-single@marketplace.com), as we still need to have you send us a copy of the Order Form.
1) First, before you send us your check, please fill out a copy of the completed Single User Order form (the same one you used to order the Evaluation License Code). Make these changes:
a) Change the ORDER TYPE field from "Evaluation" to "Purchase".
b) In the CREDIT CARD NUMBER field, enter "Paying by Check".
2) Don't send the completed form to tia-single@marketplace.com. Instead, send it to the TIA Sales Department. The address is:
tia-order-desk@marketplace.com
Please put your name as the Subject of the message.
3) Send a check for $25.00 to:
TIA Sales
InterMind Corp.
1101 N Northlake Way, STE 106
Seattle WA 98103-8901
Cashier's checks are preferred, but you can send a personal check drawn on a major bank.
4) When we receive your check, we will submit your order form. You will receive your Registered License Code via e-mail.
Q: THE ORDER FORM REQUIRES BOTH MY LOGIN NAME AND MY DOMAIN NAME. I'M GOING TO CHANGE DOMAINS SOON. DOES THIS MEAN I'LL HAVE TO PURCHASE A NEW LICENSE CODE?
No. You will need a new license code, but at most there will only be a small handling fee. For technical reasons it was necessary for us to include your domain name in the license code, but our intention was always to let a Single User license be portable to different hosts as long as it was only in use by a single user at a time.
Although we have not instituted it yet, we plan to create a special e-mail form that allows Registered Single Users to request a new license code under a different domain name, provided they use their same login name. If this situation comes up in the meantime, however, please send e-mail to:
tia-order-desk@marketplace.com
and we'll see that you get a new code.
Q: CAN I GET AN EXTENSION ON MY EVAL TIME PERIOD AND IF SO, HOW? If your Evaluation license code expires before you have been able to fully evaluate any version of TIA, we can extend it for you. Just send a copy of your Order Form to:
tia-order-desk@marketplace.com
IMPORTANT: Please make the Subject line: "Eval Extension for [your name]", and include in the COMMENTS section at the end the reason you are requesting the extension.
We'll send you a new license code by the next business day at the latest, so make sure to send in your request at least a day or two before your current eval code expires.
Q: WHO DO I CONTACT IF I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH MY ORDER?
Please send email to:
tia-order-desk@marketplace.com
Q: WHAT IS YOUR UPGRADE POLICY, AND HOW WILL IT WORK?
Easy upgrading was planned as part of the TIA Customer Service System from the start. First, all 1.x upgrades are free to Registered users. Secondly, all an upgrade entails is obtaining the new TIA binary via FTP. You don't need to change your License Code at all.
Check the "Ports Currently Available" document available via Gopher at marketplace.com or via world wide web at http://marketplace.com/ . This will include ports that have been released as well as ports that are currently in beta test but available to the public. You may also check the 'tia' directory and the 'tiabeta' directory available via anonymous FTP at marketplace.com.
Q: HOW DO I REQUEST A PORT FOR MY PLATFORM?
Just send mail to tia-ports@marketplace.com. Please include details about your hardware and operating system, the number of hosts and users involved, and the type of TIA license you would like. We will give precedence to port requests in the following order:
Q: HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN A PORT FOR MY PLATFORM WILL BE READY?
If you sent mail to the address above, we will notify you by mail when your port is ready. Otherwise, the easiest way to stay abreast of our port plans is to subscribe to the TIA mailing list by sending mail to the address listed below for "CSD Mailing List Server". Notification of all new ports and port plans will be posted regularly to this list.
You can also check the TIA Port information in our gopher menus or Web pages at marketplace.com (listed the directory below).
Q: WHERE DO I GET MORE INFORMATION OR FURTHER HELP?
For a complete directory of the addresses and phone numbers pertaining to TIA send a blank email message to:
tia-directory@marketplace.com
Thanks for your interest in The Internet Adapter.
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