Windows Universe Socket Bug
This bug seems to show up on Windows servers running Universe 10.x. Other Pick systems may or may not exhibit this behavior.
Problem
It takes over 5 seconds for a BASIC client program to make a socket connection to a remote server.
Solution
Add the remote server's IP address to \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.
Discussion
On a Windows server when a Universe program attempts to send or receive data via the internal socket functions, it always takes 5 seconds or more to complete. Apparently, the Universe functions are attempting to resolve the IP address' hostname (even though it already has the IP address and won't even use the name). This hostname lookup will timeout after 5 seconds and your web request/socket connection will proceed as normal. This problem only affects BASIC programs attempting to make a socket connection to a remote machine.
This bug may give the impression that socket-based communication is slow and unusable.
Adding the IP address to the hosts file (on the Windows/Universe server) allows the hostname to be resolved immediately, resulting in instantaneous socket connections.
