Pluggability Issues in the Multi Protocol

There are several advantages to providing communication links between independent scientiic applications. Important problems to solve include data and control integration. Solving these problems separately is an essential aspect of the design and implementation of a protocol for mathematics. The Multi Protocol (MP) speciication addresses the exchange of mathematical data by focusing only on the data encoding issues. In this way, MP can be plugged into various existing data transport mechanisms addressing control integration, or augmented by a higher control-related protocol layer. Our implementation of MP is independent of the data transport mechanism and can work with several devices. An application puts/gets data to/from MP buuers which communicate with the transport device through an abstract device interface. This paper describes the general design of the interface between MP and a transport device and the lessons we have learned during its implementation.