blissl@ecsvax.UUCP (Leonard B. Bliss) (01/07/88)
We are in the planning stages in designing a computer laboratory which will house approximately 60 APPLE IIgs microcomputers. For various reasons, we wish to network these machines in order to allow students to run software kept on a hard disk at a central location rather than having each user run from separate diskettes at their stations. Our problem is locating a file server which will allow us to do this with APPLE IIgs's,[D. Apparently there are all sorts of neat little minicomputers that would do the job for us if we were using MS-DOS machines, but we haven't been able to get any information from anyone (APPLE says they are working on it) on how to do this with our APPLES. We have been told that CORVB[D[DUS has a system that may do the job, but that it is a bear to use and has the habit of crashing on a regular basis. Is there any [Done out there who can give us some information on this? Please reply by E-mail and I will gladly summarize any information for those who may be interested. Many thanks, in advance! Len Bliss College of Education Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 (704) 262-1[D3103 blissl@ecsvax
eggers@ndmath.UUCP (Mark Eggers) (01/07/88)
In article <4396@ecsvax.UUCP>, blissl@ecsvax.UUCP (Leonard B. Bliss) writes: > > We are in the planning stages in designing a computer laboratory > which will house approximately 60 APPLE IIgs microcomputers. For > various reasons, we wish to network these machines in order to > allow students to run software kept on a hard disk at a central > location rather than having each user run from separate diskettes > at their stations. > We have been told that > CORVUS has a system that may do the job, but that it is a bear to > use and has the habit of crashing on a regular basis. > > Len Bliss > College of Education > Appalachian State University > Boone, NC 28608 > (704) 262-1[D3103 blissl@ecsvax We have used Corvus here at the University of Notre Dame in a highly mixed environment (13 Macintoshes, 7 IBM PCs, and 6 Apple //es on one network !). It ran fairly well, including when all machines were being used and all four network printers were printing. There are a couple of problems. The system is not user friendly. However, you can write a menu system to ease the burden (a User Services person here wrote one in basic for the Apple //e - another one as a .BAT file for PCs). Printers sometimes hung. This has to do with a poor choice in printer timeout. We could not conveniently control laser writers (specifically the Apple LaserWriter) on the network. There are instructions for doing this, but basically a dedicated Macintosh is required. All in all, Corvus ran well, and with a little more effort, would have been quite nice. User Services has moved the Macintoshes to an AppleTalk/AppleShare network (and increased the number of machines). The Apple //es and the Pcs are still on Corvus in another room. Basically, if you want file server capability for the Apple // series, you are stuck with Corvus. Mark Eggers, Network Communication Analyst, University of Notre Dame
mdavis@pro-sol.cts.COM (Morgan Davis) (01/08/88)
Len Bliss sez: > We've been told that CORVUS has a system that may do the job, but that is > is a bear to use and has the habit of crashing on a regular basis. I don't think the CORVUS is hard to use. You press Control-Open-Apple-RESET (reboot) and then log yourself in (like logging into a BBS), by giving it your password. Once done, it boots right up into your filespace. Pre-Constellation III versions of Corvus' installation programs were just a pain in the neck to use, from what I understand. It was slow and ran under Pascal exclusively. The new Constellation software runs under ProDOS, is much faster and easier to work with. As for crashing, at the present, the Constellation III Corvus software and interface (transporter) card does NOT like high speed CPU's like the one in the IIGS, or a IIe with a speed-up card installed. If you try to access the Corvus network on a IIGS running at fast speed, it will crash, or just hang. It's up to Corvus to build a new transporter card which is more like a generic hard disk interface so that it doesn't care about the computer's CPU speed. >From an A+ a few issues ago, Corvus is supposedly giving more attention to the Apple world than ever before after a recent buyout by Control Data. So, it's probably only a matter of time until they release Constellation IV which fully supports the IIGS, ProDOS 8 and ProDOS 16, etc. --Morgan ("Semaphores, semaphores, and more semaphores") Davis UUCP: crash!pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis@nosc.mil INET: mdavis@pro-sol.cts.com
verber@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Verber) (01/12/88)
Currently Corvus may be the only way to go right now for File Service on Apple II machines, but the AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) which is used by AppleShare was designed so that it could run on a Macintosh, IBM-PC, and on a Apple II machine. The Macintosh implimentation was the first to be released. The PC version is now out. You might be in luck, and find the Apple II version released soon. Cheers, ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Science Department Mark A. Verber The Ohio State University verber@ohio-state.arpa +1 (614) 292-7344 cbosgd!osu-cis!verber