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Maybe they can still access http://www.trumpet.com.au/inde...

It's OK, Peter Tattam's Trumpet Winsock network stack will fix that little problem for you: http://www.trumpet.com.au/

Why oh why does this feel like astroturfing?

http://www.trumpet.com.au/

I'm in 2 minds about it. On the one hand I think he should be paid. On the other my only recollection of using Trumpet Winsock was in my very earliest days connecting to uni on an old machine and I think it was actually shareware (quickly replaced by win95). And I'm not sure if paying someone who's trying to live off work done a couple of decades ago is particularly moral. I think I'd rather pay for a more recent product.

Uh. there was a time Windows didn't come with a TCP/IP stack. And this extended to the period when Windows DID come with a TCP/IP stack. Heck, even TODAY you can get 3rd party TCP/IP stacks.

If you used Windows 3.x, you've probably used it - Trumpet Winsock. Looks like it's still around and even updated for 9x and NT.

So there's your third party TCP/IP stack. In fact, before Microsoft had a TCP/IP stack (i.e., Win 3.x) in Windows, they released the Winsock specification, thus ensuring that people who wrote winsock.dll would be compatible with applications using winsock.dll. Win9x came with winsock.dll and wsock32.dll, both of which have been upgraded to Win98's Winsock2 spec.

So yes, there are 3rd party TCP/IP stacks around.

I seem to remember around 1990 using Beame & Whiteside's BWNFS to connect dos 3.1 workstations to Sun SparcStation 1s. BWNFS came with a TCP/IP stack, and some rudimentiary tools. Telnet, rsh, ping etc. Sun also had a competing product PCNFS. Not sure on the timing of trumpet's winsock, looks to be about 1993 from their website http://www.trumpet.com.au/company.html

Netscape used to be the domanant web browser... back when we were using Windows 3.1, you needed a third-party DLL called Trumpet Winsock to implement TCP/IP, and RealAudio was the dominant streaming program.

Then, Microsoft came to the party and knocked out the entire industry by illegally bundling competitors to all three of these pre-.com-era startups. Where are these players now?

RealNetworks still exists, but their proprietary audio/video codecs are used by nobody other than their bloatware RealOne product. Rhapsody is an also-ran in the digital music world.

Trumpet? They're still supporting networking for 3.1, 95, 98, and NT, but they've never had another must-have hit the size Trumpet Winsock and likely never will again.

And Netscape? They've officially deemed that there's no money to be made making a browser, and gave what they had for source code over to the Open Source community still uses the basics in the form of Mozilla. Netscape.com is just a domain that Time Warner keeps reformating. They've tried it as a cut-rate ISP, but United Online's Netzero and Juno have that game covered? They've tried it as a portal site, but realized that was redundant to AOL.com. So now they're trying it as a Digg knockoff... let's see how long that one lasts.

In reality, these companies deserved a better fate. Too bad as soon as the Bush 1.01 administration came in, the Clinton Justice Department's case suddenly died. At least the EU is still trying to take a bite...

If anyone should be thanked, it should be Bill Gates and Microsoft

Well, no. Microsoft didn't do anything for the Internet. A little Australian company called Trumpet Software produced Trumpet Winsock which allowed Windows machines to connect to the Internet, well before Microsoft ever cared about it.

They don't seem dead In fact they are doing quite well selling a decent IPv6 stack for Windows.

The difference between someone like Apple, or Red Hat bundling an antivirus solution is that they do not have a monopoly position. OS X and most Linux distributions come with most of the software that the average user needs. If Windows did then this would drive a large number of software developers out of business, not because they produced inferior code, but because a company used its monopoly position to finance dumping products which competed with theirs. This is illegal.

I remember that Trumpet Winsock was written by an Australian company for use with Win 3.1. So even that wasn't written by MS. They're still around. Heres a link to their site http://www.trumpet.com.au/products.html Hence the name Trumpet in Trumpet Winsock.

ROFL! Wow, that brings back memories.

We used to use a third party TCP/IP stack by Trumpet back in the Windows 3.1 days.
That Microsoft rolled their own based on the BSD one is pretty much irrelevant, and to have rolled a non-compatible one would have been pretty much a waste of their effort becasue the Internet was becoming mainstream in Universities and early-adoptor businesses before Microsoft "got on board."

But usually you'd get a TCP stack on the floppy your ISP gave you when you signed up. Like many small ISPs we used to distribute an install floppy containing the shareware version of Trumpet Winsock, which included a PPP dialer. When MS finally came out with a free install kit for making floppies for Windows 3.1 that included IE, the Windows TCP stack, and a nice dialer it was like a godsend (even though we viscerally hated what MS was trying to do with IE).

I'm sure there are more projects out there, I have not even tried a google search on the subject, but am quite confident.

Aah, Trumpet Winsock.. reminds me of the good old days of Windows 3.1, making sure the dial-up script was right and watching the program does it magic as it connected to the internet, accompanied with the sound of the modem handshaking. I wonder how that company is doing, after all I thought Windows 95 put them out of business.

As O'Reilly states, WinSock is more a specification, a set of APIs. Anyone could write an implementation. Several did. It just so happens that Peter Tattam wrote the best for Windows 3.1. Also he wrote a scriptable dialer which back in those days was what a lot of people needed to negotiate the hodgepodge of dial-in methods required by the much less consolidated ISP industry. And Tattam gave his package away as shareware so it could spread very fast.

It gets better though from the perspective of an argument against bundling. There were quite frequent warnings as you can see in the alt.winsock FAQ about having the "right" WINSOCK.DLL installed with all others removed. And with the change to Windows 95, I can remember the huge amount of hype over whether one should go "32-bit". Here's a sample from back then which includes advice to simply remove Trumpet Winsock under certain circumstances.

Unfortunately for the opponents of bundling, the problem with this otherwise perfect example is that it is inconceivable that a modern consumer OS would lack either a TCP/IP stack or a dialer. Trumpet Software had the clear market leader. Microsoft in Windows 95 bundled both its own TCP/IP stack and a dialer DUN. This bundling introduced potential incompatibilities that even led for some to advise uninstalling Trumpet's product. So should the government have had the right to force Microsoft to stop invading this software niche? Should it have mattered that Tattam wasn't the head of a much larger company such as Netscape? Should it have mattered that Tattam wasn't American?

By the way, Trumpet Software is currently developing a new 32 bit OS PETROS.

What exactly would be the point of Microsoft's eliminating CD-burning competition? The current strategy of simply licensing technology from someone with expertise such as Roxio makes much more sense.

When I hear complaints about Microsoft's bundling with Win9x and beyond, how come I never hear anyone complaining about the biggest victim of bundling: Trumpet Software's Trumpet Winsock. So had Trumpet been located in the US instead of Australia, would it have had a legitimate antitrust complaint versus Microsoft? Before Windows 95, Trumpet was quite often bundled with ISPs' installation software packages, and it was not considered a big deal that the customer would have to eventually purchase the product. How come no one complains on how "bundling" cost Trumpet Software untold billions in revenues?

The following list will keep you occupied about IPv6 for some time... oh just for the record ams-ix is doing NATIVE IPv6 since 1998 now... alongside NSPIXP6 and PAIX and some others to be found at v6nap.net.

First two nice repositories where you can find almost anything IPv6 related:
IPv6 News and Links (hs247)
Open Directory Project Computers/Internet/Protocols/IP/IPng/

And some others important ones which can also be found there:
6bone
Belnet
Bieringer's Linux IPv6 FAQ
Euronet Belgium
IPng
KAME
Kitame's Debian IPv6 Packages
Microsoft IPv6
PuTTY IPv6
SiXXS
Sun Solaris IPv6
Surfnet IPv6
Trumpet IPv6

IPv6 for the future (or something advocating like that :)

every win32 system can have IPv6 for months using Trumpet TCP/IP stack, even win98, not "only" nt/2k that have ipv6 support from M$ also.

I'd also like to call attention to Trumpet Software's attempt at a Win32 clone, PetrOS (Trumpet being the same folks who developed the famous Trumpet Winsock). At least, that's the way it was being billed when they first started the project. No mention of Windows compatibility is mentioned now, but that doesn't rule it out. Regardless, it still sounds cool. Check it out here. Peace & Love.

Thank you.

4920616D206E6F7420656C6974652E
Email me.

I'd also like to call attention to Trumpet Software's attempt at a Win32 clone, PetrOS (Trumpet being the same folks who developed the famous Trumpet Winsock). At least, that's the way it was being billed when they first started the project. No mention of Windows compatibility is mentioned now, but that doesn't rule it out. Regardless, it still sounds cool. Check it out here. Peace & Love.

Thank you.

4920616D206E6F7420656C6974652E
Email me.

Talking about new os and stuff.. Trumpet Software will soon be releasing their own OS with is going to run windows 9x/nt apps natively. Also it will support IPv6.
I ate my tag line.