Plus -- and this is the important thing -- PPP worked much, much better than 3.1 + trumpet winsock.
Some time around 98SE I was dual booting into BeOS, which was so damn fast it wasn't funny. But it wasn't to be.
And I remember browbeating Red Hat 3 into connecting to the internet as well.
He says he got burnt by piracy fairly badly: computer magazines were including the full version of his app on their cover disks all over the world, ISPs were handing his app to their customers, and his company was too small to stop them.
edit: I was not being sarcastic. I wouldn't mind chipping a few bucks if a hat is going around.
I found his name via a report at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.40....
If this is the guy, what should we do? Should somebody ask him what he would like?
I'm going to suggest that he sets up a paypal account we can contribute to. I will also set up a website at lunch time, I think.
He's a bit surprised by the sudden attention and says he will be commenting on the thread soon.
However, if any of you figure out some grand gesture to show appreciation please count me in. To me, he helped the web get started... An unsung hero. :)
(Though now I think about it, were they annoyed at the commercialisation of a piece of research? Being a Uni, probably. Either way, you've left an impression!)
Welcome!
It seems to me that people are donating because you've earned it. If you really feel a need to give back, perhaps the gift of education would be better. W. Richard Stephen's TCP/IP Illustrated is a great book, but looking long in the tooth these days. I'm sure you've forgotten more about TCP/IP than most of us have learned, but perhaps a book on TCP/IP by a guy that wrote a stack would be a good start?
I've posted a HN ditty:
As far as Peter and Trumpet Software, they were based out of Hobart - After Windows implemented a default TCP/IP stack, much of his core business disappeared, they mucked around with building their own operating system for a while, turned Trumpet into an ISP, and in the end, his wife took him for most of what he had. Messy divorce/bankruptcy. Poor guy, he created a piece of software that I used for many years. For a long time, the trumpet implementation was better than the MS implementation, I still used it even when windows had built in PPP facilities.
The support tech I dealt with was super helpful but was confused by the mounting calls on the issue so after a few days he investigated and found that the BBS files were infected with the Monkey.3 MBR virus. The cool thing was that he called me directly and let me know the source of the problem and apologized on behalf of IBM.
(Of course, all good things must come to and end, and after Windows 98 was through I switched to Linux/Firefox and then to OS X/Firefox/Chrome.)
I see what you did there.