Stan Horwitz <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> I used to have access to two Vax VMS systems which were directly on Bitnet.
> On one system, there was no SENDFILE feature at all. Being as though CREN
> Eric, and others out there tout SENDFILE as a great Bitnet feature, they
> should find this fact disturbing even if the fault is not CREN's. On the
> second VMS system where I had Bitnet access, there was a send file
> capability, but its syntax was totally different than the VM version. The
> same situation was true with TELL. It was not available on one system, and
> on the other system, its syntax was entirely different.
Well, it's a decision that a particular site's management needs to make. With
a VM host, most sites will need RSCS for other things, so they will use that
for BITNET as well. Since it's vendor software from the same vendor as the OS,
most users would select it (even if there were 3rd-party alternatives, which I
don't believe there are).
Of course, there's the MVS shops that are using HASP. I don't think you could
make a successful case that HASP and RSCS have similar command sets, and they
are from the same vendor!
Now, under VMS I know of two NJE emulators - the Joiner/Wingra (see, folks,
I remembered their new name! 8-) commercial product and the ANJE product, which
I believe is non-commercial. Some sites will evaluate them both and select the
one that meets their needs. Some will take the lower-cost one regardless of
features. Some will buy the commercial one "because the non-commercial one
can't be any good", regardless of actual merit. And, I presume some small num-
of sites will either get both or be paralyzed by the indecision and get neither
of them.
This is the same trade-off made by management regarding the leased line - do
they get a line to the cheapest place they can, even though it's 33 hops from
the core and only up two hours per century (don't laugh, we just moved off a
line like that 8-) or do they spend more to run a line to a core or near-core
site?
In either case, the decision is a _local_ _management_ _decision_. Person-
ally, I think having two styles of emulator in the same organization wastes
time as users try to adapt, but then I wasn't the management there. In any
event, it's a local problem and users should take it up with their management.
Most operating systems (including VMS) allow command aliases and procedures.
If requested, I could make Jnet's SEND/FILE and SEND commands look like SEND-
FILE and TELL. However, in my experience users don't mind what the command is
called as long as it is locally consistent and somewhat logical. For as long
as SPC has been a BITNET member, almost all documentation has said "use TELL
(or your local equivalent command, such as SEND" when these commands were dis-
cussed.
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
[log in to unmask] St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
[log in to unmask] +1 201 915 9381
P.S. - I was using the ARPAnet and FTP before Unix systems were popular (I
think I can remember maybe 3 Unix systems out of the 200 or so active hosts).
The FTP command set everyone is calling the "Unix" command set isn't. It's
the TOPS/Tenex FTP command set. So there 8-)
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