The Microsoft/3Com specification known as the Network Driver Interface Standard (NDIS) specifies software requirements and its interface to hardware and protocol stacks for PC network drivers. It is, therefore, very similar in purpose to our Open Data-Link Interface specification (ODI) which we co-developed with Novell.
However, each of these specifications detail similar requirements in very different ways. An application written to one standard cannot work with drivers based on the other. The two specifications are essentially competitors in the PC-network, driver-architecture world.
Because of this, a protocol stack based on one standard cannot coexist on a network card with a protocol stack for the other standard. This is the unfortunate side effect of two competing standards. A user must use one or the other set of software at one time. Switching between them generally requires rebooting the computer.
Because AppleShare PC 2.0.x is based on the ODI specification, software based on NDIS cannot use a network interface card while AppleShare PC is using it. This prevents an NDIS based Telnet application from concurrently using the same network card as AppleShare PC.
We don't know of any ODI compliant TCP/IP software that can coexist with AppleShare PC, but we'll submit this to product management as an enhancement request. We'll also submit it to Farallon product management, because they're now taking over the AppleShare PC product.
Article Change History:
07 Nov 1994 - Reviewed for technical accuracy.
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