MCGUIRE@GRIN2.BITNET (08/03/87)
Posted to: info-vax@kl.sri.com, compos01@ulkyvx
Cc: francisb, mcguire
Grinnell College is undertaking an evaluation of its word processing
requirements, and of current and emerging technologies in word processing and
electronic publishing.
One major goal is to reduce to one, or maybe two, the number of fully supported
word processing systems at Grinnell.
At the same time, we wish to maintain at least our current level of service; we
are also interested in trying new approaches, if appropriate. Highly
accessible word processing is an important institutional priority for Grinnell.
I've been asked to collect several different kinds of information that may
help us meet these goals. To this end, I am soliciting your opinions about
word processing. I have identified three different approaches to my part of
this evaluation, which I include below. However, I don't wish to constrain
anyone's answers to fit an arbitrary format. Please feel free to contribute
anything from very general opinions and observations to very technical
information about any specific hardware or software.
1. General information about the future of word processing: What are some
different approaches, and which could be of value to students, faculty,
and administration? (Each of these groups may have different needs,
require different approaches to training, etc.) This is blue-sky stuff!
2. Reevaluation of our current systems. We're especially interested in
comparing Digital's WPS products with MEC's MASS-11 products. We currently
fully support the following major approaches to word processing on our
central VAX cluster and microcomputers.
- 1200 student body: EDT/DSR (RUNOFF) on two VAX-11/750s; MASS-11pc on
Rainbow microcomputers (diskette or Corvus Omninet-based systems)
- 140 faculty: MASS-11 on the VAX-11/750s; MASS-11pc (diskette or local
hard disk systems)
- 100 administration: WPS-PLUS/ALL-IN-1 on a VAX 8600; WPS on DECmate
microcomputers (diskette or hard disk systems)
- 100 support staff: MASS-11 or WPS or both, depending upon whether they
support faculty or administration or both
3. Specific information about software that would work well with our current
hardware and software environment. For example, software compatible with
VAX/VMS, MS-DOS, and ALL-IN-1. One department will have a network of Sun
workstations up soon, so UNIX(TM) compatibility is starting to become an
issue.
Thank you in advance for contributing! Please reply to me directly. I will
collect all responses for redistribution to anyone who's interested, and also
post a summary to both lists . . . if responses to such a broad question can
indeed be effectively summarized! Hopefully, the summary will be a basis for
further discussion of this important topic.
---- Ed McGuire, Systems Coordinator, Grinnell College, MCGUIRE@GRIN2.BITNET