Created by Ed Allard , Tim Davison and Kevin Brunner Sept 1, 1997
While writing demos for the O2 we realized that we were going to be
using the network for many of our demos. Because we had different demos
that needed to have network support, we built a library that we could
use for all of the demos. For example, with this library it is possible
to send live video or audio over the network. We also wanted to be able
to distribute the source code. This PENT library allows us to do all of
these things.
The PENT (Petite Extensible Network Toolkit) library consists of a group of c++ objects that encapsulate the base network system calls. The PENT library allows you to use either a TCP or a UDP transport mechanism. The api for either transport mechanism is the same when you use PENT. The only difference is the type of object you instantiate. Within PENT there are two object types. There are the connection objects and data objects. The connection objects are used to create a channel for the two machines to communicate. The channel creation includes some basic handshaking. Once the connection is established, you pass the connection to a data object that knows how to send data across the connection. This allows you to create a different type of connection, but not change the code that sends and receives data.
The source code to libpent is available to SGI customers and developers to make demo development and application prototyping easier for the O2. The official distribution point for this library is the Developer Toolbox, which is distributed as part of the SGI developer program (highly recommended.) This distribution will be the latest and greatest, and (sometimes scariest) version of pent.
This release requires an O2 running "Irix 6.3 including R10000 support". Please read the copyright information before using the library.