Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!convex!killer!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!rutgers!ucsd!nprdc!halff
From: halff@nprdc.arpa (Henry Halff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Looking for rec. on PC lans that don't require dedicated server
Message-ID: <698@arctic.nprdc.arpa>
Date: 1 Aug 88 01:16:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: arctic.698
Sender: news@nprdc.arpa
Reply-To: halff@nprdc.arpa (Henry Halff)
Organization: Halff Resources, Inc.
Lines: 50

jeff@drexel.UUCP (Jeff White) writes
>
>   One of the companies I do soem part time consulting for is thinking about
>setting up some PC's for a secretary and her boss.  They would probably be
>doing word processing and spreadsheets on it (semi-independently).  One thing
>they would like to have would be SideKick or any similar pop-up program that
>allowed them access to a calendar, rolodex, phone log, etc.  What they wanted
>to know is whether it would be possible to set up the two machines so that
>certain files remained identical across the two machines.  For example, if she
>makes an appointment in the calendar, whenever he access it he should also
>see it.
>  My solution off the top of my head was TOPS.  One machine would act as the
>server for the specified program/files (SideKick, in this case), and when
>the other machine booted, it would first mount that volume, and then run it
>from there (ie. she would boot first, export subdirectory with SideKick; he 
>would boot after her, mount that subdirectory (making it appear local), and 
>run it also).  I'm assuming that whatever changes he would make would show to
>her as well (since both should be using the same data file, and assuming no
>conflicts (both not updating at once).

You have two problems with TOPS.

First, it doesn't make any of your existing applications into network
software.  So, for example, if Sidekick on one machine grabs a file, it
may or may not be accessible to the the other machine.  For
applications that keep data in core and keep their files closed while
in operation, I suspect that you won't have any problems.  If your
applications keep data files, scratch files, or temporary files open,
you are in for trouble.

Second, a TOPS node on a PC is going to grab about 200K.  If you plan
on running lots of other memory-resident software in addition to TOPS,
you could find yourself without enough memory for applications.

>  I could also forsee them wanting to be able to print from both machines,
>and I'd like to know if a network software solution would be better/cheaper
>than running cables and putting in some type of switchbox to 1 printer.  File
>transfer would probably also be desireable.  

TOPS will let you publish your printer, so that both machines could
print to a single printer without additional cabling.  TOPS has some
spooling capabilities to avoid conflicts, but I haven't tried them and
don't know how well they work in practice.  File tranfer is no problem
under TOPS.  The DOS COPY command works just fine.

>Cost must be kept to a minimum.
 
Too bad.  Otherwise, I'd recommend that they both get Macs.

hh