netser is a virtual device driver for accessing remote serial ports as
if  they  were  local.   Currently,  it  only supports TCP/IP with the
AmiTCP  package.   Support  for  other  packages  are planned.  netser
emulates  low-level  serial  device  commands  over the network.  As a
result,  your telecommunication (or "comm") program does not know, nor
does  it  care, where your serial port is really located.  As you will
see,  netser  allows  you  to  do things that have never been possible
before!

Suppose  you  are  running  a  two  machine  network at home through a
parallel  port  or  Ethernet card.  Wouldn't it be nice if one machine
could  access  the  other machine's serial port?  You can conveniently
call out to a BBS on any of the machines.  You may even run a two line
BBS  without buying a multi-serial card!  And if you want to run a big
BBS, but you don't have enough expansion slots to populate with serial
cards.   What  you  can do is get another (slower) machine and connect
the  two together with Ethernet.  netser will allow the BBS machine to
use the other machine's ports.

With  netser  and  internet, you may run your favorite comm program on
your  friend's  serial  port,  which may be half way across the world.
This will save you long distance charges.

Now  that  Amiga  LAN's  exist, it would be convenient to dedicate one
machine  on the LAN to hold modems that may be accessible to any other
machine on the LAN.  (This is commonly known as a modem pool.) It is a
common thing on Unix LAN's.  Your company will no longer have to drill
holes in the walls to equip each machine with a modem.  As a matter of
fact,  since  not everybody needs a modem all the time, the modems can
be  shared.   Any  way  you put it, your company saves money.  Because
most modems nowadays come with FAX capabilities , you can now fax from
anywhere!

And  the  list of possibilities goes on and on.  The fact is, whatever
you  do with the serial ports on your local machine, you can now do it
with remote serial ports.  Only netser makes it possible!

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 9219   16368  56.3% -lh5- f875 Sep 18  1994 bin/netser
[generic]                  349     941  37.1% -lh5- a5c4 Sep 12  1994 db/netser.exports
[generic]                  274     722  38.0% -lh5- 4500 Sep 18  1994 db/netser.imports
[generic]                 2032    3268  62.2% -lh5- 1c1c Sep 18  1994 devs/netser.device
[generic]                 7009   18134  38.7% -lh5- 345e Sep 19  1994 doc/netser.doc
[generic]                 7300   19235  38.0% -lh5- 64b5 Sep 19  1994 doc/netser.guide
[generic]                  277     518  53.5% -lh5- ee52 Feb  4  1993 doc/netser.guide.info
[generic]                15608   26760  58.3% -lh5- e89f Sep 18  1994 serv/netserd
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         8 files   42068   85946  48.9%            Sep 19  1994