see also: alternate universe where commercial winsocks continued to be relevant and now every podcast and youtube channel is advertising NordWinsock

@gsuberland Ye gods man. A world-scale single collision domain!

@gsuberland X400 vs smtp is also wild alternative universe

@gsuberland Oh please no. I’m very glad we left IPX / SPX behind.

@gsuberland the internet is 20 billion devices all linked in a daisy chain of nullmodem cables.

@gsuberland virtual private winsock

@gsuberland programming winsocks

@gsuberland *reads up on what a winsock is* Sorry, am I misreading or was that not just a Microsoft thing to allow Windows programs to talk to TCP/IP? And still seems to be getting updates today?

@gsuberland still waiting for winsock 3

@Canageek @gsuberland think of it as there being multiple competing TCP/IP stacks on the market for Windows. Maybe you get one from your ISP, or maybe you buy NordWinsock which includes Privacy Protection Plus, or GamerSock with proprietary latency reduction technology.

@jon @gsuberland ahhh, thank you

@Canageek @jon yeah back in the ye olden days you didn't necessarily have a fully featured network stack on your machine. winsock existed as a component but was early days. Trumpet Winsock was an early commercial replacement that claimed more features and better performance.