clutx.clarkson.edu (collins anthony g,,,) (07/23/89)
Consider this scenario. There is a successful consulting company which has adopted computerisation in a loose fashion. Thus they have collected a lot of PCs (standalone) and a mini computer. This is an engineering, design oriented firm and is aiming to put a pc in front of every engineer. The person in charge of this affair (let us call him X) is one of the senior project engineers(not a CS major). X is recently into commercial bulletin boards like CompuServe and is fascinated by the idea of a bulletin board which links all the company employees and improves discussion and exchange of information and knowledge among various departments. Now the questions- 1) Do various LAN suppliers also offer software to implement a bulletin board system ? 2) Is it possible to implement Email while networking the PCs? These questions may seem very naive and I am sorry for that. But given the background of the problem can any of you offer any other suggestions. Please email to k500@clutx.clarkson.edu thanks Arun
lars@salt.acc.com (Lars J Poulsen) (07/27/89)
In article <1989Jul22.211058.1702@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> k500@image.soe!clutx.clarkson.edu writes: > ... a successful [design oriented engineering] consulting company ... > has ... collected a lot of PCs (standalone) and a mini computer. > [They are] aiming to put a pc in front of every engineer. > The person in charge of this affair ... is fascinated by the idea > of a bulletin board which links all the company employees and improves > discussion and exchange of information and knowledge among various > departments. > > Now the questions- > 1) Do various LAN suppliers also offer software to implement a bulletin board > system ? > 2) Is it possible to implement Email while networking the PCs? What is the budget ? Is the minicomputer described above a UNIX system ? I would adopt a Unix machine to be a mail server, and set up netnews on it. While the introduction of a full USENET feed into the work environment could (and should) be controversial, it seems to me that a "local" newsgroup tree would do most of what you want, and the software is both cheap and reliable. A 386-AT clone with XENIX or ISC unix, TCP/IP and ethernet plus a good sized disk would do the job, almost straight out of the box. TCP/IP for MS-DOS is about $600/station including an ethernet interface; a little more with an NFS client. I don't know if there are good POP (post office protocol) implementations readily available. Are there better ideas ? / Lars Poulsen <lars@salt.acc.com> (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !!
rcsmith@anagld.UUCP (Ray Smith) (07/27/89)
>In article <1989Jul22.211058.1702@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> k500@image.soe!clutx.clarkson.edu writes: > ... a successful [design oriented engineering] consulting company ... > has ... collected a lot of PCs (standalone) and a mini computer. > [They are] aiming to put a pc in front of every engineer. > The person in charge of this affair ... is fascinated by the idea > of a bulletin board which links all the company employees and improves > discussion and exchange of information and knowledge among various > departments. > > Now the questions- > 1) Do various LAN suppliers also offer software to implement a bulletin board > system ? > 2) Is it possible to implement Email while networking the PCs? You may want to look at a package called TEAMATE from MMB. It seems to be a versatile package. From what I understand they also have a number you can dial-in and try out the package on. Their address and the name of the folks I have spoken with are: Roger Morrell or Bob Baskerville MMB Development Corporation 1021 North Sepulveda Blvd. Suite K Manahattan Beach, CA 90266 (213) 545-1455 Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with MMB.... I just looked at the product for much of the same reasons the original poster mentioned. Also, my wife is currently developing a system around TEAMATE and is a satisfied user. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ray Smith | UUCP: {uunet,aplcen,netsys,sundc}!anagld!rcsmith Analytics, Inc. | ARPA: RCSmith@DOCKMASTER.ARPA or Suite 200 | anagld!rcsmith@uunet.uu.net 9891 Broken Land Parkway | Columbia, MD 21046 | Voice: (301) 381-4300 Fax: (301) 381-5173 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=