ab@ist.CO.UK (Andy Bartlett) (01/17/89)
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**** I AM FORWARDING THIS MESSAGE FOR A FRIEND WHO DOES NOT
**** HAVE ACCESS TO THE NET (or e-mail, poor chap!)
****
**** if you can help, please contact me (and I'll pass on your
**** message). I'll also twist his arm to summarise replies -
**** which I will repost if they warrant it.
****
**** please mark any replies via me:
**** Subject: Sindex
****
**** ta
**** ab@ist.co.uk
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Suns , PC's (!!) , TOPS , PC-NFS.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sindex is a company specialising in the input of Chinese
script into computer applications.
We're a small company with a couple of Sun 3/50's and a couple
of PC's (8086's 286's etc). At present code is developed both
on Suns and on PC's. We then shift it around using an Excelan
Ethernet card and ftp. We aren't very happy with the present
situation and thought about having the PC's permanently
connected into the Sun's disk system accessing files there and
not on the PC's local hard disk. Hopefully this will give us
the advantage of only one source, easier backups via the Suns
cartridge, more disk space etc etc.
There seems to be really only two systems capable of linking
PC's into the Sun's NFS, TOPS and PC-NFS. What we're after are
comments on the two different systems. (If there are any other
systems, those as well). If there are any London based
companies willing to demonstrate either of the two systems in
a real working environment we'd be very grateful.
The sort of information we're after is
(1) Ease of use. How easy is it to set up and use each system?
Are there any problems (i.e. bugs/features) that have come
up? Are special versions of operating systems e.g. MS-DOS
3.2 or a particular variant of SUNS OS?
(2) How fast are they? Do they both use Ethernet deep down?
We already have an Excelan Ethernet card. Will that work
with either system?
(3) How easy is it to link printers onto each system? At the
moment we have a dot-matrix printer on the RS232 port on
one Sun. We'd like to put a Postscript printer (possibly
an Apple Laserwriter II) and have it accessable from all
machines.
(4) Memory requirements on the PC. We have enough heavy memory
applications as is. How much memory does PC-NFS and TOPS
take. Can any of the two systems work in Extended or
Expanded memory or be split down or loaded as required.
(5) We're also looking at putting a database on the Sun. We'd
like to be able to access the information from the PC. At
the moment Informix looks a likely bet, does any one have
experience of trying to run Informix (or any other SQL
based database) across a TOPS/PC-NFS network.
(6) Any other information, comments, suggestions etc?
If you wish to contact us directly, please write to or ring
Rob Willett,
Sindex Ltd,
6 Southampton Place,
Holborn,
London,
England WC1A 2DA.
01-405-1828.
or you can e-mail replies back to the above net address and
hopefully they'll be forwarded to me.
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