steve@aardvark.UUCP (Steve Willoughby) (09/13/87)
A few weeks ago I posted a request for info regarding IBM PC local-area networks. I got enough response from that request to keep me busy for awhile -- thanks! I also promised to post a summary to the net, so here is a sampling... Marcos Della (tektronix!sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!mdella): ...Synoptics Ethernet system over 2 twisted pair cable... It's a nice system that also uses fiber optics for connections or for a backbone depending on your application and the price is somewhat reasonable. Greg German (ihnp4!uiucuxc!german): ...I agree that the Novel NetWare on their Ethernet is a good choice. (Though under heavy loads Proteon's ProNet-10 may perform better.) It may be a little more difficult to configure the software [than] the IBM LAN program, but I think it is easier to use once properly configured... He went on to discuss PD software (no names mentioned) that is available for giving PC's access to files on *real* [1] computers using TCP/IP or DECNET protocol, also mentioning that you need to be careful to make sure that this software supports whatever net boards you're using. Henri J. Socha (amdahl!drivax!socha): About 6 (or less) months ago PC TECH (?) had a cover article comparing network hardware ... Anyway, the #1 network was ARCnet in almost all categories. That hardware is fast and reasonable. Yes, it is not Ethernet or a major standard but ... there are over 400,000 nets installed with it. Its boards are cheaper, its cabling is cheaper and its recovery fault/tolerance is I think the best there can be... Now use Novell, 3Com or anybodies software (even DRI's) but use these boards. ... I used [networks] with about 200 nodes (mostly diskless!) with a message rate on the wire of 200-300 per second. Response was so reasonable that for example in R&D there was only 1 machine with a local disk. (Not even floppies)... Michael Shiels (tektronix!tessi!uunet!watmath!watale!watstar): ...here we have written a network called *WatStar/pc which is now being marketed by a company called WatLan. It uses Proteon 10Megabit Tokenring cards and uses one PC/XT server for approx 30+ stations. The server is running a real time executive and allows 5 printers and upto a 690Megabyte FUJI driver to be attached... The network comes with an encryption system which means the software on the network won't run on another machine unless it is on the network. There is a fullblown account manager and accounting system for connect time, disk usage, printer usage. It has a full dial in facility in which you can run Lotus or anything else. There are extensions being written to the system to allow other hardware such as ethernet, arcnet, dialup lines etc for the communication links. There is a electronic mail facility and an interactive full screen phone facility... There were a few more comments, and a few others requesting that a summary be posted. I will post more when I have found out more info about these systems. If anyone has experience or comments about any of the above systems (or others), please send mail to me (or post). --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Steve Willoughby UUCP: ...ihnp4!tektronix!tessi!aardvark!steve [1] Please don't flame this comment just because I have a warped viewpoint of these cute smart terminals some call IBM PC's... :-)