mmorse@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Michael Morse) (10/05/88)
> After months of work and chasing down mulitple bugs we have brought up > PC-NFS v 3.0. Unfortunately, after we installed Lifeline (the pop2 client) > for a PC, we find that it is NOT a TSR and thus has limited (if any real) > usefulness. You don't say what kind of PC you run, but my experience was completely different. I just loaded the software and it ran. I had to make some modifications to the POP server to make it work with MMDF, but it ran out of the box with sendmail. The Mail user interface is too big to run as a TSR, but that doesn't make it much less useful. The user interface is so good it beats anything running on a time-sharing machine (like our poor overloaded VAX). It is very fast and easy to use. It compares with the best PC programs, which are head and shoulders above anything available on a tty connected to a central host. If TSR is of critical importance (obviously it's not for me), you might want to look into one of the "context switching" programs for DOS such as Desqview or DoubleDOS. They should allow you to keep LifeLine in memory, assuming you have enough memory to load LifeLine and other programs. > Has anyone created a pop2 client for the PC that will coexist > with PC-NFS and remain as a TSR so that mail delivery is always available > and relatively transparent? The pop2 client probably wouldn't be that difficult. The problem is to make a reasonably useful user interface that could be memory resident on a PC. I've never seen one. In order to save memory so you can run it TSR, you must delete functions. This means that you have two user interfaces, one full-blown to run from the DOS prompt, and one stripped-down to run TSR. My experience with the stripped down ones is that you start to use it and become frustrated each time you want to use a feature only available in the full version. The solution most vendors implement is to provide a small TSR product that only informs you of mail, and perhaps gives the subject lines. You still have to exit your DOS application and start up mail if you want to read and reply to the mail. I think you'll just have to wait for OS/2. The DOS 640K barrier is just too big a restriction. > Also, just as a general comment is everyone having a difficult time getting > SUN to support PC-NFS? My feeling was that it was a good thing that the software was so good, because I couldn't get any information out of SUN. The support people admitted that they had never actually seen the product (PC-NFS), much less used it. I was never able to get in touch with anyone who knew any more about the program than I could glean from the documentation. This was many months ago, so things may have improved drastically in the meantime. It's obvious that there are some people at SUN who are very sharp PC programmers, but they keep them pretty well protected from their users. --Mike Michael Morse Internet: mmorse@note.nsf.gov National Science Foundation BITNET: mmorse@NSF Telephone: (202) 357-7659
snorthc@NSWC-G.ARPA (10/05/88)
> If TSR is of critical importance (obviously it's not for me), you > might want to look into one of the "context switching" programs for > DOS such as Desqview or DoubleDOS. They should allow you to keep > LifeLine in memory, assuming you have enough memory to load LifeLine > and other programs. I have tried to run Lifeline under Windows/386. I keep getting a socket0 error when the POP client tries to run. The problem may be insuffcient free memory. There is enough memory to compose/read and queue mail however. > The pop2 client probably wouldn't be that difficult. The problem is to > make a reasonably useful user interface that could be memory resident > on a PC. I've never seen one. In order to save memory so you can run > it TSR, you must delete functions. This means that you have two user > interfaces, one full-blown to run from the DOS prompt, and one > stripped-down to run TSR. My experience with the stripped down ones is > that you start to use it and become frustrated each time you want to > use a feature only available in the full version. The solution most > vendors implement is to provide a small TSR product that only informs > you of mail, and perhaps gives the subject lines. You still have to > exit your DOS application and start up mail if you want to read and > reply to the mail. I think you'll just have to wait for OS/2. The DOS > 640K barrier is just too big a restriction. I tend to agree, but maybe we won't have to wait for OS/2. Sidekick plus is an example of a very large and functional memory resident program that uses ~64k of the lower 640 as a "kernal" and can stuff the rest into LIM 4.0 space. >> Also, just as a general comment is everyone having a difficult time getting >> SUN to support PC-NFS? Sometimes it seems like SUN NFS is the only reasonable alternative to total Novell domination of the networked PCs world. Too bad they don't take their role more seriously. I don't have a problem with Novell, it is their protocol stack I would like to avoid. I also had the same experience as Michael Morse, I just loaded the SUN NFS SW and it ran. The best support is not having problems. When I had problems with PC NFS 2.0 and called SUN, they sent a patch for one problem and deferred the second till the release of 3.0. I am still making no headway with the Lan Manager supplied with the Micorsoft OS/2 SDK and the 3c505 driver. You think SUN support is bad, try 3Com!!!!!! Hopefully, I will get the update Microsoft said they shipped two weeks ago any day now. Any rumors of an OS/2 NFS component? Stephen Northcutt (snorthc@nswc-g.arpa (such as it is)) Take what I say with a grain of salt. I test and evaluate products from the companies mentioned, and document the results. Your mileage may differ. Your opinions (and my management's) almost certainly will...