UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (02/06/91)
I am working on an R&D project for the Navy Bureau of Medicine.
In a nutshell, the goal of the project is to integrate several
existing and new functions into a single, transportable system
for use by Medical Corpsman. The system functions include
everything from office automation tasks such as
o Records, inventory, and patient history management
o Word processing, telecomm, spreadsheet
o Hypermedia access to numerous medical manuals
o Full-motion video display of medical procedures and expert
system diagnostic support.
o Voice recognition and text/screen to voice conversion
Corpsman are the people who operate the medical facilities.
While stationed at a large base, they run the sick bay, schedule
immunizations and periodic exams, manage inventory, and so on.
However, at smaller locations, especially isolated ones such as
submarines, they become responsible for more and more of the
primary health care, and may even be called upon to perform the
kind of procedures, including diagnosis, normally reserved for
MDs only.
We have reached a point where we need to re-evaluate the original
platform chosen: MSDOS 4.01, 486, 200MB SCSI, CD-ROM, Laser Disc
player, 1GB read-write optical, mouse, and VGA.
One of the Primary Goals of the project is to *assemble* the
system from available hardware and software. This is why we
started with MSDOS, since there is more available hardware and
software in that marketplace than in others.
However (you've probably guessed), we are having a very hard time
squeezing it all into one, integrated system. Even using a
memory manager such as QEMM386 v5.1 there are just too many
device drivers and workspace buffers. In fact, some of the
products we are trying to squeeze in pretty much require their
own 640K machine to run, period.
THE QUESTION...
So, what other platforms should we consider? What software and
hardware is available for OS/2, SparcStation, NeXT and so on that
could be used to assemble such a system.
I would be grateful for any ideas, especially descriptions of
available products such as voice recognition or Hypermedia. We
are mostly MSDOS and Amiga wise, and so need most of our advice
for the others.
I am posting this to several groups, but it isn't cross-posted.
I hope that this reduces any internacine conflicts 8-)
leebb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) (02/07/91)
In article <91036.120726UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: > o Records, inventory, and patient history management > o Word processing, telecomm, spreadsheet > o Hypermedia access to numerous medical manuals > o Full-motion video display of medical procedures and expert > system diagnostic support. > o Voice recognition and text/screen to voice conversion Sweet. Obviously, price is not a concern, and you can purchase equipment that isn't "on the contract" (i.e. Unisys 386 boxes). > MSDOS 4.01, 486, 200MB SCSI, CD-ROM, Laser Disc player, 1GB read-write > optical, mouse, and VGA. Yecccch. > However (you've probably guessed), we are having a very hard time > squeezing it all into one, integrated system. Even using a memory > manager such as QEMM386 v5.1 there are just too many device drivers > and workspace buffers. In fact, some of the products we are trying to > squeeze in pretty much require their own 640K machine to run, period. Justification for my yeeechhh. > So, what other platforms should we consider? What software and > hardware is available for OS/2, SparcStation, NeXT and so on that > could be used to assemble such a system. OS/2: Worse choice than DOS. All the complexity of UNIX, none of the tools, experienced programmers, network ability (NFS, TCP/IP, email), or grace. Not even multi-user. Not even virtual memory. Buy a Sun UNIX box, and you will have to purchase full-motion video, WP, Spreadsheet, Database, and R/W optical seperatly. You will also have to kill yourselves programming X Windows to get decent interfaces. Buy a decked-out NeXT cube with the MO drive and the NextStation video board, and you get full-motion video on the screen, WP, Telecomm, Spreadsheet, perhaps Lisp, and Database bundled with it. You can buy hypermedia access tools right now. Take it from me, you want at least 16 (24?) Meg of memory and 1 Gig of (SCSI) disk. You also get a window-system Interface Builder tool (IB) that leads everything else on the market by an order of magnitude. Pick up a copy of thier literature and stop by for a demo of a machine this week. Get the *salesman* to demonstrate building a user interface for you. Warning: Avoid Business Land at all costs. Only deal with NeXT employees. -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu