View source for FOSSIL

{{Short description|Protocol for serial communication on DOS}}
{{other uses|Fossil (disambiguation)}}

'''FOSSIL''' is a standard protocol for allowing [[Serial communications|serial communication]] for [[telecommunications]] programs under [[MS-DOS]] compatible [[operating system]]s. FOSSIL is an acronym for ''Fido Opus SEAdog Standard Interface Layer''. ''Fido'' refers to [[FidoNet]], ''Opus'' refers to [[Opus-CBCS]] BBS, and ''SEAdog'' refers to a Fidonet compatible mailer. The standards document that defines the FOSSIL protocol is maintained by the Fidonet Technical Standards Committee.<ref>[http://www.ftsc.org/docs/fsc-0015.001 FSC-0015] — FOSSIL implementation and use, Fidonet Technical Standards Committee</ref>

==Serial device drivers==
A "FOSSIL driver" is simply a communications [[device driver]]. They exist because in the early days of Fidonet, computer hardware was very diverse and there were no standards on how [[software]] was to communicate with the serial interface hardware.<ref>[http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184403026 Dr. Dobb's] — Interfacing to a FOSSIL Communication Driver, Dr. Dobb's Journal</ref> Initial development of [[FidoBBS]] only worked on a specific type of machine.{{which?|date=April 2015}} Before FidoBBS could start spreading, it was seen that a uniform method of communicating with serial interface hardware was needed if the software was going to be used on other machines. This need was also apparent for other communications based software. The FOSSIL specification was born in 1986<ref>[http://sysopworld.com/bbsfaq/ch06.09.htm SysopWorld] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428121316/http://www.sysopworld.com/bbsfaq/ch06.09.htm |date=2007-04-28 }} (unavailable document) — The History of FOSSIL Drivers, The Official BBS FAQ</ref> so as to provide this uniform method. Software using the FOSSIL standard could communicate using the same interrupt functions no matter what hardware it was running on. This enabled the developers to concentrate on the application and not the interface to the hardware.

FOSSIL drivers are specific to the hardware they operate on because each is written to fit specifically to the serial interface hardware of that platform. FOSSIL drivers became more well known with the spread of [[IBM PC compatible]] machines. These machines ran some form of DOS (Disk Operating System) and their [[BIOS]] provided very poor support for serial communications—so poor that it fell far short of the needs of any non-trivial communications task. Over time, [[MS-DOS]] and [[PC DOS]] became the prevalent operating systems and PC compatible hardware became predominant.

Two popular DOS based FOSSIL drivers were [[X00]] and [[BNU (software)|BNU]]. A popular [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] based FOSSIL driver is [[NetFoss]], which is [[freeware]]. [[SIO (software)|SIO]] is a popular [[OS/2]]-based FOSSIL driver.

== FOSSIL drivers for hardware other than serial interfaces ==
FOSSIL drivers have also been implemented to support other communications hardware by making it "look like a modem" to the application. 
Internal ISDN cards (that did not use serial ports at all)  often came with FOSSIL drivers to make them work with software that was originally intended for modem operation only.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/NETWORK/FOSSIL FOSSIL drivers' ancient history]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fossil}}
[[Category:FOSSIL| ]]