bertv@kompas.prl.philips.nl (Bert de Vries) (09/03/90)
My department is looking for a fax solution in a Sun environment.
Below you'll find the current status of my investigations:
Fax-requirements
The minimum requirements for the Fax(board) to be used in the ECHO-environment are :
1. CCITT Compatibility T.4 (essential) and T.6 (desirable).
2. Auto Dial/Send. The capability of the fax board to dial telephone numbers
in an unattended mode and transmit documents.
3. Auto Answer/Receive. The capability of the fax board to accept transmitted documents in unattended mode and save them to disk.
4. File Format T.4 (essential) and T.6 (desirable). The capability of the facsmimile board to transmit T.4 and T.6 format directly. T.6 format should converted in T.4 first.
5. A command line interface for transmission. A command line interface should be available including the following parameters:
- pathname(s) of documentpage(s)
- telephonenumber of recipient (fax)
- date/time at which the fax should be transmitted
6. The transaction log of both transmission and receiving should have a
known format and accessable by other programs.
7. High reliability, high uptime at least 95%.
Additional features depending on platform
Three possible solutions are mentioned below. The SUN solution has preference
above the others.
PC based
1. Fax(board) in AT bus of PC
2. Driver software runs on MS-DOS
3. Application software runs on MS-DOS
Mixed PC / SUN
1. Fax(board) in AT bus of PC
2. Driver software runs on MS-DOS
3. Application software runs on SUN (Sparc and 386i)
4. SUN - PC connection via Ethernet/TCP-IP.
SUN based
1. Hardware-interface SCSI, S-bus or AT-bus
2. Fax(card)-manufacter must deliver driver-software which runs on SUN-platform
(Sparc or 386i)
3. Application software runs on SUN-platform
Fax-status
The following faxboard are under investigation.
The Complete FAX/9600
A PC board, recommended by Datapro Research (1989 report).
Tested informaly. Looks allright for a PC.
JT Fax 4800
A PC board, recommended by Datapro Research (1989 report).
Tested informaly. Looks allright for a PC.
Gammafax
A PC board, recommended by Datapro Research (1989 report).
Tested informaly. Looks allright for a PC.
Looks promising, due to its programming interface (for OEM only).
JTS products
A product line of JTS Computer Systems U.S.A. Present on the list of
SBus developers.
Promising for full SUN connectivity. More information is
asked for. No reply so far.
NewPort fax products
A product line of Xecom U.S.A. Present on the list of
SBus developers.
Promising for full SUN connectivity. More information is
asked for. No reply so far.
Fax Modem
A product of Antares Microsystems U.S.A. Present on the list of
SBus developers.
Promising for full SUN connectivity. More information is
asked for. No reply so far.
X-tend Netmodem/Fax products
A product line of Helios Systems U.S.A. Present on the list of
SBus developers.
Promising for full SUN connectivity. More information is
asked for. No reply so far.
The Bristol Group
Deutschland Gmbh
Dreeichstasse 10
Moerfelden-Walldorf
Telephone: (0)6105-2945
Telefax: (0)6105-25395
(or)
P.O Box 910
Londonderry New Hampshire
Telefax: 603/437-3220
Fax equipment for SUN environment,
Additional information received. Very promising, complete SUN integration,
Open Windows, NO PC dependencies.
FINAL REMARK:
There are very few products available which give a real SUN based solution.
A lot of offered solutions depend completely or partly on a PC. The only
real SUN solution I have had information on is the Bristol Group.
If you have any comments on my remarks or additional information please
respond to this net or directly to me.
__ __ __ __ Bert de Vries, ECHO Project
/_/ /_ /_/ / Philips Research Labs, Project Centre Geldrop
/_/ /_ /\ / Willem Alexanderlaan 7B, 5664 AN Geldrop
Phone: +31 40 892311 Fax: +31 40 892300
Domain: bertv@pcg.philips.nl
__ __ __ __ Bert de Vries, ECHO Project
/_/ /_ /_/ / Philips Research Labs, Project Centre Geldrop
/_/ /_ /\ / Willem Alexanderlaan 7B, 5664 AN Geldrop
Phone: +31 40 892311 Fax: +31 40 892300DeadHead@cup.portal.com (Bruce M Ong) (09/04/90)
> >FINAL REMARK: > >There are very few products available which give a real SUN based solution. >A lot of offered solutions depend completely or partly on a PC. The only >real SUN solution I have had information on is the Bristol Group. > I think PerfectByte - which makes sun peripherals - has a fax solution. Check the latest Sun Observer or Sun Expert for their ads. If you do look into PC based solution , you have to check out the multi-channel cards, otherwise, you'll have to have a pc to host each card. GammaFax CP cards are multi-channel cards (expensive but programmable). Dont know much about the comlete pc card - I remember having to deal with these people because they didnt know how to write their TIFF tags right - hopefuly they have corrected their tiff file problems. One problem with GammaLink CP is its real-time requirement: If you put 5 of them in the same chassis, and you have all 5 of them transmit the same image in a PCNFS network directory, mounted on a busy sun host, then you have a high probability of not having your entire image transmitted through (yes folks, it drops half a page). The symptom is reproduceable if the image file is on a floppy disk. Dont know if they have fixed that problem. The JTFAX card is nice in that it is completely memory-based. No io ports to deal with, no interrupts. You could put quite few of these boards in chassis. But with MSDOS being single tasking, you'll have to write some TSR of your own to drive multiple cards, or use some multi-tasker like DesqView - which will become a nightmare when you have to network with the sun... Too bad nobody has done a real good multi-channel SBUS fax board... surprising - with SBUS spec being so readily available and good fax chips (yamaha) out there... I mean, c'mon - real hardware hackers dont do Intel... :) Oh, - if you do use a partial PC solution, you will have to worry about bit orders and byte orders. GammaFax software does not read MSBfirst tiff files, nor does it read msb->lsb bitorder tiff images. It does not product a TIFF5.0 compliant tiff header (no # of scanlines in image, no rows per strip), JTfax boards expect lsb->msb data. I suspect that's the case with most PC fax software. If I were to make a decision, I would spend the money to get a real sun solution, and save a million headaches later on. Bristol's stuff is quite cool - except their floating license stuff is a pain (like framemaker's). >If you have any comments on my remarks or additional information please >respond to this net or directly to me. > > __ __ __ __ Bert de Vries, ECHO Project > /_/ /_ /_/ / Philips Research Labs, Project Centre Geldrop > /_/ /_ /\ / Willem Alexanderlaan 7B, 5664 AN Geldrop > Phone: +31 40 892311 Fax: +31 40 892300 > Domain: bertv@pcg.philips.nl > bruce deadhead@cup.portal.com Robofax: coming to a store near you...
craig@com50.c2s.mn.org (Craig Wilson) (09/04/90)
In article <33521@cup.portal.com> DeadHead@cup.portal.com (Bruce M Ong) writes: >>FINAL REMARK: >>There are very few products available which give a real SUN based solution. >>A lot of offered solutions depend completely or partly on a PC. The only >>real SUN solution I have had information on is the Bristol Group. But Hey! If the network IS the computer, then a PC hung off of the ethernet is just a distributed controller. An S-Bus card would be nice, but you can't put too many of them into one Sparc 1/1+/IPC. That means that for multiple fax lines you would have to distribute the cards around to different Sparcs. That could be a real administration and maintenance headache. By packing one PC with, say, four fax cards and an ethernet controller, you can get a decent fax server going now for not much money. Do you think that an S-Bus fax card is going to be cheap? Maybe, but I won't hold my breath. The way we do it, we have the multifax driver on the network drive. The PC's boot off of floppy until they get their network drive 'C' mounted. Then they finish the boot and startup the fax driver. The driver runs as a TSR so that DOS command line control is maintained in case you want to look at logs, etc. One installation we have running has three PC's with four fax cards apiece. This site receives from 1700 to 2000 faxes a day with the average fax message being about 2.5 pages. At this point, all of the fax messages are run through the UNIX server (Not Sun) and are printed on one of two laser printers that are three floors away from the incoming fax lines. The next phase, starting soon, will display the fax messages on a high resolution monitor in one window while the data entry operator performs order entry through another window to the backend mainframe computer. Signature blocks on the faxes will be used for routing standard forms to one place, nonstandard to another. This phase will do away with printing of most of those faxes. So, it is all in your mind. Stuff some fax cards into a PC, hang it on the network, and forget about it. If the cards are reputable, the system WILL JUST WORK, after a wee bit of programming. Okay, maybe a bit more than a wee bit. Not a major task, but if you feel uncomfortable in the PC arena, a systems solution is available from many places. > If you do look into PC based solution , you have to check out the >multi-channel cards, otherwise, you'll have to have a pc to host each card. > ... >But with MSDOS being single >tasking, you'll have to write some TSR of your own to drive multiple cards, or >use some multi-tasker like DesqView - which will become a nightmare when you >have to network with the sun... The cards that we use are XAFAX cards from OAZ out of Sunnyvale, CA. They are intelligent with their own buffer memory. You can gadzillions in one PC, if they will fit. OAZ sells a multifax board driver with their boards. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty good and getting better. Tip of the Week: I personally will not put more than four cards in one PC chassis. Primarily due to heat and power supply considerations. I just like to be conservative when it comes to systems that I have to support from hundreds of miles away. >I mean, c'mon - real hardware hackers dont do Intel... Don't I wish it were true. >If I were to make a decision, I would spend the >money to get a real sun solution, and save a million headaches later on. You would probably spend a lot of money and still end up with headaches. Given any three products that deal with compressed bit maps, one of them will need the bits reversed. BTW, the products can be from the same manufacturer and the above law still applies. My only relationship with OAZ is as a satisfied customer. Drop me an e-mail message if you can't find their telephone number. /craig