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Grex > Coop7 > #19: Meeting to plan Grex's budget on 3/5/95 |  |
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| Author |
Message |
| 24 new of 73 responses total. |
steve
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response 50 of 73:
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Apr 11 02:54 UTC 1995 |
Yup: as you grow, the number of free slots becomes an interesting
issue. John, I hope the tech staff has looked into the 16 port boards;
you should be able to sell the 8 port boards pretty quickly.
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mdw
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response 51 of 73:
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Apr 11 03:23 UTC 1995 |
I'm not really worried they turned down the terminal server issue. It
just means I get to tell everyone else everytime they bitch about the
system being especially slow - "it's because of them blasted high speed
lines". Besides, it's now guaranteed I'll prevail in the end. We now
have more 14.4k modems than we have ports to support them, and a single
trunk hunt that's broken in 3 different ways. So it's really only a
matter of time.
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steve
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response 52 of 73:
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Apr 11 12:09 UTC 1995 |
Can you define broken? As in doesn't work, or the trunk hunt is
split into three different types of modei?
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popcorn
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response 53 of 73:
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Apr 11 13:24 UTC 1995 |
<valerie cowers in fear that Marcus is going to go into
broken-record mode again, like what happened with the move>
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mdw
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response 54 of 73:
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Apr 11 22:38 UTC 1995 |
Naw, I'll just let the users bitch, like "why can't I {always,ever}
connect when I dial up locally" and "why is the system so slow".
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davel
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response 55 of 73:
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Apr 12 00:59 UTC 1995 |
Um, can we take time out from the argument to busy out whatever line
has the modem that goes
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and hangs?
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lilmo
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response 56 of 73:
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Apr 12 05:40 UTC 1995 |
Now why would we want to go and do something like that ???? :-)
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robh
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response 57 of 73:
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Apr 12 11:32 UTC 1995 |
Yeah, I've kinda sorta been wondering about that one myself.
I don't mind attack-dialing Grex nearly as much as getting
that stupid line every time.
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popcorn
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response 58 of 73:
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Apr 12 12:03 UTC 1995 |
Re 55 & 57: Yes yes yes yes yes! <Valerie agrees vehemently with you>
Sometimes it works to dial 761-5041 to dial around the xxxxx modem and
reach another 9600. That's what I'm on now....
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tsty
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response 59 of 73:
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Apr 21 10:21 UTC 1995 |
Fwiw, i have a terminal server, for grex, but when steve looked at
it he thought it was too slow. So I rather dropped the subject.
Now, however, since too much speed seems to be a concern (of sorts),
it might be time to excavate this hardware/software implementation,
after all, it's free - that's why I finnagled it for grex.
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steve
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response 60 of 73:
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Apr 21 13:54 UTC 1995 |
The problem with it was that there wasn't any software for it,
nor would modern software such as PPP work on most likely. People
are upgrading terminal servers, because the older ones can't run
at the speeds that modei run at these days, nor can they do things
like PPP. So while terminal servers are going to be more plentiful
in the used market, a lot of them won't work well.
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tsty
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response 61 of 73:
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Apr 22 13:49 UTC 1995 |
huh? That there wasn't the immediate presentation of software, at
that very second, wasn't any sort of major concern. I said I would,
and did, contact the company about software - it's avaialble.
That part was siimple. The major complaint was the maximum speed,
regardless of software. So I dropped the idea and still have this
terminal server. I can , and will, regenerate the necessary contacts
if there is a renewed interest.
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steve
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response 62 of 73:
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Apr 22 16:00 UTC 1995 |
Did you find PPP software for it? Was the code in source form?
What protocols did it support? How munch is it?
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tsty
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response 63 of 73:
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Apr 24 07:30 UTC 1995 |
thankxx for the added questions - i do know that it has rs-232 ports
n one end, and thick ethernet on the other ... if that helps generate
more question, or, points to check on.
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gregc
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response 64 of 73:
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Apr 26 08:25 UTC 1995 |
Steve, why the hell do you keep jumping up and down about whether the
terminal server supports PPP??? For what we intend to use it, it doesn't
even need to support SLIP, let alone PPP. We will need a box that allows
several high speed lines to be muxed into the ethernet. We need a *terminal*
*server*, do you know why it has that name? PPP and/or SLIP would be a
nice extra, but they are not required.
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steve
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response 65 of 73:
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Apr 26 13:15 UTC 1995 |
If we're going to go a completely different technology for
serial I/O Greg, it needs to be modern. There are lots of reasons
it would be nice to let people eastablish PPP connections to Grex,
among them nicer newsreaders on their own machines (using less CPU,
too), POP mail, etc.
The other reason is that if the terminal server supports PPP it
is more likely to have been worked on this century, and is likely to
be less buggy overall. I'd rather not get somthing whose software
was last worked on in 1986 and still has 1986-style bugs in it.
Does that make sense?
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tsty
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response 66 of 73:
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Apr 27 07:26 UTC 1995 |
My understanding about PPP on Grex is that we can't do it because,
i read somewhere else, we cannot be an "internet provider." Please
correct this impression if it is incorrect.
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gregc
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response 67 of 73:
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Apr 27 10:49 UTC 1995 |
The big argument for a terminal server has been:
"Too many tty lines coming into Grex at high speed will overload the
CPU with too many interupts from the ALM-II serial Mux board. A
terminal server will place all this load on the Ethernet and relieve
the CPU from high interupt loading."
Period. We do not need a terminal server that supports to PPP or SLIP to
accomplish this goal. The above has been your argument for over a year
now Steve, just when did PPP and SLIP enter the picture?
Second, we could only give external users TCP/IP connectivity to Grex
on our own class C net with SLIP and PPP. We could not route them to the
rest of the net because that would violate the terms of our internet service.
Third, allowing users to establish SLIP and PPP connections to Grex would
put even *more* load on the system, not less.
And finally, we have already stated that we are *NOT* an Internet Service
Provider and we don't want to be. We are a conferencing system. Allowing
PPP and SLIP connections will just move us more in the ISP direction.
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steve
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response 68 of 73:
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Apr 27 16:38 UTC 1995 |
You're rght TS, we can't allow people to connect their machines
up to Grex and then through to the net. Thats a part of our contract.
Grex, I hear what you are saying, but consider this: adding the
ability of users to establish a PPP connection for local things
could save us some CPU cycles, in terms of people running things
like newsreaders, and mailers on their local machine, sucking up
data off Grex, but not burdening Grex with all the overhead associated
with processing it.
The thought of our moving towards ISP status in the eyes of some
is possible. Now, while I believe that Grex is still primarily a
conferencing system, I think there is still room for us to be
able to allow better front ends ofor things. I mean, I'd rather
use a reader like Trumpet instead of plain trn--I'll bet there
are others who would agree. We still need to do further investigation
on this however, to see if its feasible.
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gregc
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response 69 of 73:
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Apr 28 05:58 UTC 1995 |
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remmers
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response 70 of 73:
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Apr 28 08:25 UTC 1995 |
Re #68: STeve, I thought you were opposed to providing means for
people to read their Grex mail on their own machines, on the grounds
that it would detract from the community aspects of Grex. Have you
changed your view?
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mdw
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response 71 of 73:
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Apr 28 10:32 UTC 1995 |
How is he being inconsistent?
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steve
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response 72 of 73:
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Apr 28 13:35 UTC 1995 |
For local users coming in over the phone lines, it might make
sense. Certainly it would allow for something that would let people
use Grex with more modern front-ends. I'm still worried about the
use of such links over the net, in that I still think we'd run the
risk of getting a lot of people over the link using us in a remote
fashion.
We need to make a new item for this.
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remmers
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response 73 of 73:
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Apr 29 14:15 UTC 1995 |
Oh, gotcha -- this would apply to dialins only.
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