jeg@ptsfa.PacBell.COM (John Girard) (06/17/88)
Does anyone have experience with a serverless (hopefully)
PC lan that will run as a background task under Microsoft
Windows and/or Desqview?
What I want to do is have a foreground task on each PC
in a group of perhaps 5 units providing an interactive
data entry function. One unit will have a background program
that will periodically collect files from the other units
and transfer them to a remote host via phone line.
I would like this lan to be cheap, to use RS232 instead of
a card if possible, and to be reliable.
Maybe too much to ask!
Please reply to:
John Girard 415-823-1961
{sun,bellcore,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!ptsfa!jeg
Thanks!bruceki@microsoft.UUCP (Bruce King) (06/24/88)
In article <4360@ptsfa.PacBell.COM>, jeg@ptsfa.PacBell.COM (John Girard) writes: > > Does anyone have experience with a serverless (hopefully) > PC lan that will run as a background task under Microsoft > Windows and/or Desqview? > > What I want to do is have a foreground task on each PC > in a group of perhaps 5 units providing an interactive > data entry function. One unit will have a background program > that will periodically collect files from the other units > and transfer them to a remote host via phone line. > > I would like this lan to be cheap, to use RS232 instead of Ok -- I'm not sure that I understand your question; please clarify if I missed the point. What you want to do is have a group of 5 computers updating a database that is located on a sixth computer. Each of the 5 wants to have r/w access to the database. You want each of the 5 computers to be able to run either windows or some other form presentation software. In terms of network solutions, there are a couple of things that come to mind. One is to combine microsoft networks (or some OEM variant like IBM's pcnet) and windows 386. The pcnet product in particular allows you to use a non-dedicated server, and so one of the five workstations could also serve requests from the other four; this isn't "serverless", but in terms of hardware its as close as you'll come. I'm not sure what you mean by "serverless"... A second thought is to use an Os/2 lan manager server as one of the data entry nodes; it's also a non-dedicated server, and can simultaneously serve requests from the other four, as well as run windows in the compatibility box. I'm couching these solutions in terms of microsoft products due to my experience with msnet & os/2 lan man solutions; I'm quite sure that there are other networking solutions out there that will work for you; I'm just not well versed in how they work. Both of these entail buying or having network cards. If you're hooking these things up for the minimum cost, try this idea: Install a com port in every computer. Daisychain them all together, hooking rx on one to tx on another computer, so that each computer can send messages to the computer next to it. Write a small TSR or device driver that can either accept or pass along data that comes in, and implement a token ring network in software, using this hardware. It's cheap, and if you keep it simple it should be implementable in a few months; 4-6 man months. If it's for a one-time shot though, it's probably not worth it. Some of the problems that I ran into when I was doing this were related to lost tokens (due to bugs and hardware crashes), and defining the protocols used. It wasn't a problem to make it go initially, but it was to expand it compatibly later. I did this for a game that I wrote on an MP/M based computer that didn't have any better communications method -- so I did this hack with the serial ports and it worked fine. I read this newsgroup infrequently; if you've got questions, email's the way to go. Bruce King / Microsoft University / (206) 882-8080 ihnp4!uw-beaver!microsoft!bruceki (work) ihnp4!uw-beaver!microsoft!polari!bruce (home) Disclaimer: I've spent a lotta time developing these opinions, and I'll be darned if I'll let anyone else take credit for 'em!