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On Fri, 14 Apr 1995, Doug Heimburger wrote:

> This may be a bit off topic, but...

> The radio station I work for (non-com, school-run) is currently 
> working on going paperless.  I have been asked to draft a proposal 
> for a networked solution and a non-networked solution.  We're going 
> to have a maximum of four computers on the network, with more 
> (hopefully) to come.  We're currently an AP subscriber, but that may 
> change, so we need a flexible solution.

> A few questions for those who are paperless:

> 1) For lan users - are you using Windows NT or Novell as your server 
>    (or other associated server product)? 
Unix (SCO, Solaris, or Linux) are MUCH less expensive, and offer much 
better services for OA.  It's also scaleable - from a 386/SX-16 (about 
$200) up to an IBM ES-9000 or bigger.  AT&T makes a machine that straps 
together 1000 pentiums - and runs the same software (source code form)
as the PC runs.

The server can be connected to Windows via TCP/IP - You can get ethernet 
cards and coax for about $50/user.  NFS-Client for Windows is expensive, 
but SoftTronics has a very low-cost implementation (info@softronics.com)
Anybody else know of NFS-Clients for under $100?

Eudora E-Mail and Netscape are about $30 each - download from the 
internet.  Trumpet is available, as is Microsoft's VXD driver 
(microsoft.com) via download.

>    Does the program you are using fit your needs?
I keep thinking my needs are well met, and then some new toy becomes 
available and I start using it, and wonder how I got along without it.
I still haven't unwrapped all the toys in the "FlagShip" release I got 
from Programmer's Paradise.  It has one of the best printed manuals of 
Any Linux release though, and 4 CDs.  For $60!

> 2) What paperless program are you using?  Do you like its ease of 
>    use?  Does it run under Windows or DOS? (I'm especially looking 
>    for a Windows based solution).  Also, how customizable is it (can 
>    I have certain classes auto-print)?  Finally, how easy is it to cut 
>    and paste to create a complete newscast?
Open standard give me a plethora of choices.  For MIME e-mail, I can use 
PINE, Xmh, MailTool, or EZ (From the Andrew Package).  For HTML viewing,
I have Lynx, Mosaic, Cello, Netscape, and WinWEB.  For HTML Editing I can 
save Word files to RTF and use a perl script to convert it, or I can 
create SGML files on EZ and convert them (HTML DTDs are included).  I can 
also parse many structured feeds/records (Dow Jones' composite-feed 
format, Oracle, SMTP headers, and reports "printed" to my parsers written 
in Perl or Lex/Yacc.  There is some manual editing required, but much 
less than if I tried to hand carve HTML using 'notepad' or 'vi'.

The X-Windows interface is much like Microsoft Windows, except that when 
you start an application nothing is displayed until everything is ready 
to run (you can read e-mail or do something else in the mean-time).  Also,
X-Windows Applications assume that they must cooperate with other 
applications and let the Window Manager and Unix Kernal manage things 
like schedualing and memory allocation.  An application that puts up an 
equivilant to the "abort" dialog of MS-Windows and procedes to grab 
focus, mouse, keyboard, and schedular until you press the abort or cancel 
key are considered "hostile" and are fixed very quickly.  As a result,
you very rarely reboot.  It is not unusual for a Unix engine to go a 
month or more without being rebooted or "CTL-ALT-DELETE" cycled.

Another feature of X-Windows is that you can run a Graphical application 
on one machine and have it displayed on the console of another.  At the 
moment I am connected to and running X-11 Applications on 12 machines 
including 4 VMS machines, and 3 brands of Unix (Sun, Dec, HP, Linux, IBM).
You can even run graphics like IBM 3270 emulators, on the Mainframe.
Our system administrators can manage over 100 machines from one or two 
consoles.

The Unix kernal also cleans up each task's memory so their are fewer 
"memory leaks", which means you don't need to spend an extra $6000 
($1500*4 machines for 32MB RAM expansions) on memory so you can let NT or 
Windows95 eat it with leaks.

> 3) What did you find to be the best place for the news system?  Is it 
>    in the studio by the board or in another room (i.e. - print and read 
>    or read from the screen)?

The publications I work with (electronic) have editorial staffs who 
"work" the story (classifications, sorting information, filtering...)
and pass it on to the next level.  Dow Jones uses Suns, Standard and 
Poors uses Ultrix or OSF (Unix Workstations).  Workstations are nice
because they function as both clients AND servers.  You can put stories 
into a shared drive and "alert" different editors who can pull and push 
stories to each other's machines.

> 4) What is the cost of the paperless program you are using?  Is it 
>    per computer or per site?  Are you buying or renting?
Dow Jones spends about $300 Million, you can get started for about $4000
(4 pentiums runing Linux with 1 gig drives), and a bit of time
(8 hours/pc to set up, and 40-80 hours to explore and learn the new 
tools).  As you explore the system, it will be like discovering treasure.

You can also run DOS applications and some MS-Windows applications.

> ALSO - Does anyone know of any paperless programs that provide
>    network capability without a server (using Windows for
>    Workgroups, etc.)?
Yes, if all four PCs are running Linux and running 1 gig drives, you can
NFS mount them to each other and have about 3.5 gig (about 100 meg is kept
redunant and local for performance reasons.  You can even strap them 
together using serial ports set to very high speeds (110Kb is possible).

As your budget improves, you can upgrade to Sun, HP, IBM (PowerPCs with 
AIX or RS-6000s), even Dec Alpha's.  Since the source code is available
(most of it is included on the CD-Roms), you can run your favorite 
applications on these platforms, or even machines yet to be invented.
Anything that can't be ported or purchased can be run remotely through
X-Windows.

Support is a bit of an issue. You can pay as much as $200/hour ($3.50/minute
on 1-900 numbers) for support.  Or you can browse the 3000 newsgroups (almost
1 per application) and ask questions if you don't find what you need.  There
are even archives of many of these groups.  New releases come out every
month, but you will probably only want to upgrade 3 or 4 times per year. 

>    Douglas Heimburger       datah@pinn.net     (preferred)

	Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Wed Apr 26 23:08:47 1995
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