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From: Pete.Holsberg@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org (Pete Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: AT&T sys V R 4. and 1542B
Message-ID: <675518012.33@sunbrk.FidoNet>
Date: 27 May 91 20:44:51 GMT
Sender: Usenet@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org
Lines: 59


In article <1991May26.165851.10315@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
=In article <1991May25.132814.4876@mccc.edu> pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg) writes:
=
=>From AT&T, you mean?  I *am* getting AT&T support for AT&T UNIX running
=>on an AT&T 386 which has a WangDAT, a Consensys HD controller and a
=>couple of Equinox multiports.  But I'm about to purchase another system
=>with a clone as a file server and AT&T has not yet said that they would
=>not support it.  The account rep said she'd like not to lose the sale of
=>a server, though.
=
=My experience is that when you call AT&T support, you need the serial
=number from one of their boxes.

Unless your account exec intervenes.  :-)

=>But actually, I agree with you.  I would have liked to avoid buying this
=>new LAN from AT&T but no one locally is willing to do a TCP/IP
=>installation for me and no one has come up with a suggestion on an MSDOS
=>mail program a la Word Perfect Office for the MSDOS clients (they're the
=>only clients on a proposed UNIX server), so it looks like I'm going win
=>LM/X and AT&T!  :-(
=
=That should run on top of TCP/IP if you want, but the only advantage would
=be to connect to other machines running TCP/IP.  If you've already got
=a starlan net, the LM/X should drop right in and you should be able to
=put in 10base-T for the new stuff and bridge it to the old 1M starlan if
=you want to keep any of it.  I'm not sure if it's worth changing the
=cards in a slow PC - they probably can't load even the 1M net.  PMX-Starmail
=isn't bad as a DOS mail interface if you toss the "enhanced" unix mail
=transport that comes with it and replace it with something like smail3
=(it needs to handle binary attachments).  If mail under DOS is important,
=you can also set up dial-up connections that look just like the lan
=stations but you need a different set of products (Access Plus and
=pmxpc).  It's possible to run Access Plus over starlan using the naucom
=driver if you only want to have one package, but the driver takes some
=additional memory.

Never heard of Access Plus or pmxpc, but that's not the point.  Because
of AT&T's insistence on having one of their computers, I'm trying to
wean the College away from AT&T towards vendors that will support their
software and/or hardware, almost regardless of server hardware.  I don't
expect Dell, for example, to troubleshoot my system if I run Dell's UNIX
and something goes wrong, but I do expect them to talk to me just
because I bought *something* from them.  As you point out, AT&T will not
talk to you unless you can produce a computer serial number, even if
your problem lies somewhere else.

I wonder if that will change when NCR takes over the computer business.

Pete

-- 
Prof. Peter J. Holsberg      Mercer County Community College
Voice: 609-586-4800          Engineering Technology, Computers and Math
FAX: 609-586-6944            1200 Old Trenton Road, Trenton, NJ 08690
Internet: pjh@mccc.edu	     TCF 92 - April ??-??, 1992

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