sysmark@physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) (06/07/91)
Apologies in advance if this falls in the FAQ domain, but we don't use Macs much in our group, so I rarely have chance to read comp.sys.mac.* .... We're looking into the possibility of getting some sort of FAXmodem, and Abaton's InterFax 24/96 has been recommended. Does anyone feel that this is a particularly good or bad choice (and, if the latter, why)? What we'd really like to do (eventually, if not immediately) is to provide the ability to send FAXes not only from the Mac into which the FAX modem board is installed, but also from other Macs on the LocalTalk network, and from our UNIX workstations (Sun,SGI). In other words, people would like to be able to create a document (both simple ASCII, and more complex things produced by (for example) TeX) on a UNIX machine, and somehow get it to the Mac and out the phone line to a receiving FAX, preferably with a minimum of manual fussing. At the UNIX end this could be done easily by using the BSD print spooling stuff, specifying as the print filter some program that converts things to whatever representation is appropriate (PostScript? TIFF? PCX?) for whatever runs in the Mac, and specifying the Mac in the /etc/printcap "rm" field. The *real* question is, can the Mac be set up to function as a FAX server for the ethernet? In other words, can some background program be running which monitors the ethernet and/or the LocalTalk network for requests to receive a document from the originating system, then queue it to be sent as an outgoing FAX? I can presumably get these questions answered for the InterFax by calling Abaton. But it would be nice to know which other FAXmodem vendors might support this sort of thing. (Or, for that matter, is there any public domain (or other freely available) software that does this, with any of the currently available FAXmodems?) Finally, I'd like to re-ask the same set of questions, but assuming an A/UX environment. Clearly the ability to set up a daemon that would be a "FAX request listener" would be a lot easier (well, a lot easier for *me*, given that I have a lot more UNIX experience than Mac experience) than it would be under MacOS. However, which of the FAXmodem vendors (if any) provide A/UX drivers for their boards? As usual, thanks in advance for whatever help/advice/whatever you might be able to provide. Mark Bartelt 416/978-5619 Canadian Institute for mark@cita.toronto.edu Theoretical Astrophysics mark@cita.utoronto.ca