Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!polyslo!mira.acs.calpoly.edu!mdeale
From: mdeale@mira.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: What's coming?
Message-ID: <12156@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 89 18:08:34 GMT
References: <65100001@tippy> <116900003@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <288@eedsp.gatech.edu>
Sender: news@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU
Reply-To: mdeale@mira.acs.calpoly.edu.UUCP (Myron Deale)
Organization: ACS, Cal Poly, San Luis
Lines: 37

In article <288@eedsp.gatech.edu> owen@gt-eedsp.UUCP (Owen Adair) writes:
>In article <116900003@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>
>>All that the box of software really needs is an instruction manual and
>>a cryptographic key, written on a slip of paper.  The vendor can make
>>the software available on a BBS, to customers who have correct
>>software keys, enabling them to download the software.  There are so
>
>What happens when you try to distribute a very successful package that
>sells many thousand copies? I can just see the 30 or 40 thousand people 
>that got TurboC upgrades when 2.0 came out try and download it at the
>same time.
>
>Don't get me wrong, electronic software distribution perhaps has a place,
>but to try and use it for primary software distribution to a large audience
>would be suicide.
>
>Owen Adair, WD4FSU                                            

   It might work. For instance, some universities have students register for
classes via touch-tone (not R anymore ?) telephone. The first quarter it was
tried around here there wasn't any priority scheme and many ten's of thousands
of calls were placed in a matter of hours -- from all over the state. Can you
say "grid lock" ?

   Then again, even with priority scheduling (eg. "last names starting with
A-C get to call on Tuesday" and the priority changes per quarter), well let's
just say folks still have choice words for the new-fangled technology. Rightly
so as of yet. Details on how to get around the problems "are left as an exer-
cise for the reader."

   In addition, access to a 9600 baud modem is important. [Which probably goes
without saying ...]

Myron
// mdeale@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu
// say, isn't gatech an engineering school or am I confusing you with caltech