nelson@epiwrl.EPI.COM (Ken Nelson) (11/26/90)
Our marketing people use Macintoshes and Dbase/Foxbase based prospect tracking software. Our engineers use Sun's (for development) but get calls from prospects, and provide customer support, etc.... I would like to host this database over TCP/IP, NFS on the Suns. I know this is possible, but this leads to another possiblity that I am not sure about. Could my engineers running DBASE for the Sun, or FoxBase, use the database at the same time as the marketing people on the Macs? Is there another way to do what I am trying to do (share databases across multiple platforms)? Thanks, Ken Nelson Computer Systems Manager Entropic Research Laboratory (202) 547-1420
tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) (12/04/90)
In article <3894@epiwrl.EPI.COM> nelson@epiwrl.EPI.COM (Ken Nelson) writes: >Our marketing people use Macintoshes and Dbase/Foxbase based prospect >tracking software. ....<deletion>.... > >Could my engineers running DBASE for the Sun, or FoxBase, use the database >at the same time as the marketing people on the Macs? I hope this does not sound like a commercial, but Ashton-Tate was giving a continuous demo of a heterogenious network spread across a PC, a Sun, a Mac and a VAX at Las Vegas COMDEX. Admittedly, both the Sun and Mac versions are still in beta (the first VAX/VMS version was completed and is now in DEC's hands) but they are close to being completed. To sound less like a commercial, in theory, with careful coding, you could continue to use Foxbase on the Macs and use the Ashton-Tate product on the Suns when it is available. Tom Rombouts Torrance Techie tomr@ashtate.A-T.com V:(213)538-7108
francis@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) (12/04/90)
In article <1990Dec3.180958.27020@ashtate> tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) writes:
To sound less like a commercial, in theory, with careful coding, you could
continue to use Foxbase on the Macs and use the Ashton-Tate product on the
Suns when it is available.
It is worth pointing out that SCO licenses the Fox Software engine in
order to produce SCO FoxBASE+, which is presently available. I'm
hoping that they'll get together with Fox and work out some sort of a
deal wrt FoxPro, especially since that'll be coming out on the Macs
RSN.
However, FoxPro aside, as long as you're willing to write
character-based screens for the Mac code (or separate procedures), you
can use Foxbase across Macs, PCs and Unix. Today.
--
R David Francis francis@cis.ohio-state.edualexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) (12/05/90)
francis@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) writes: >In article <1990Dec3.180958.27020@ashtate> tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) writes: > To sound less like a commercial, in theory, with careful coding, you could > continue to use Foxbase on the Macs and use the Ashton-Tate product on the > Suns when it is available. > >It is worth pointing out that SCO licenses the Fox Software engine in >order to produce SCO FoxBASE+, which is presently available. I'm >hoping that they'll get together with Fox and work out some sort of a >deal wrt FoxPro, especially since that'll be coming out on the Macs >RSN. This is already done. Ray Love (formerly of Nantucket, now at SCO) was at the Fox Developer conference this year to work out this deal. Sadly, the deal will only cover SCO systems. So this won't help with suns. Also, I'm not at all sure that you'll be able to use the SCO version on a network. I think they only do multiuser on one CPU. (You could log in over the net, you just couldn't run multiple backends.) >However, FoxPro aside, as long as you're willing to write >character-based screens for the Mac code (or separate procedures), you >can use Foxbase across Macs, PCs and Unix. Today. But not on Suns. As I see it, you've got few options. You could wait for X-Fox. At least 18 months, I think, maybe more. Alternatively, you could set up a 386 or 486 as a virtual DOS session server, and let Sun users log in over serial ports. This would give you FoxPro, but screen drawing would be miserably slow for the more graphical stuff. You could wait for SCO FoxPro, and use it for the same thing. This would be faster and stabler, in all likelihood, but you couldn't share with other machines on the net, I think (but _CHECK THIS_ with SCO- I could be wrong). You could also set up a current Fox+ on SCO and use that the same way, then upgrade to SCO FoxPro when it becomes available. With the SCO options, you could log in from Macs the same way, but you'd lose the Mac interface... --- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY {cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis