No, it's not as bad as it sounds -- I'm not trying to run X programs over 
a SLIP, but I am having a rather discouraging problem.

My SLIP has been extremely unstable since I got it -- in anticipation of 
getting the SLIP, I got and installed NetBSD 1.0, and all the basic 
software that everyone needs; tcsh, pine, etc. all the way up through the 
X windowing system (XFree86 3.1).  

So for the last 2 months I've tried swapping modems on both ends, checking
phone lines and wiring, tried switching to ppp (never quite got it working,
but hey) ... etc.  And so then my business partner who is NOT a computer
person suggested "try not running X" for various reasons... and so just 
to appease him, after rebooting one night I left the system up without 
running X.  And here I am three days later and the connection hasn't 
dropped once (it was to the point where the SLIP would loose the 
connection 2 or 3 times in an hour at some points, other times it would 
go as long as 10 or 12 hours before it would drop, but never longer than 
that)... 

Has anyone reported any comments like this before?  Any thoughts on where
to look to fix things?

For informational purposes I'm running NetBSD 1.0 on a 486/66 with 16 megs
of RAM and an adaptec 1542b (or was it c? I'll check..) with an 820 meg 
drive.  Like I said, it was XFree86 3.1.  The modem is either a Zoom 14.4 
or a Zoom 28.8 depending on what's going on at the moment (I know, I 
know, Zoom sucks, but they're free...)  and the modem on the other end is 
always either a microport or at&t paradigm.

-
John