🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi Peter, this is Nick from Washington DC. I really want
to thank you for your mail, you described me your situation
fully and to the point. Management will greatly appreciate
it, I have begun talking bitnet/internet in their
minds from long ago...

Let me tell you a few things about sci, here in Reston-Virginia.

I'll start from me. I am originally from Athens-Greece and
came in america about 11 years ago to go to college. I work
here at sci now, mainly with vmsecure and prorexx, but
ocasionally I get to see some backup or tape issue.

I have long written to the bitnet administration folks,
who have told me that sci could in fact register in
bitnet, the fee would be $3000 a year. Its really no
big deal. If we were a non-profit organization, we
would pay half that much, ie $1500 a year, but since
we are a "for-profit" company, its for us $3000/year.

I personally have been in bitnet from 1983, and lately
in internet(although they both communicate with each
other). I prefer BITNET over internet, because in bitnet
I can use the SENDFILE command and send a file just like
it is. In internet, I would have to include it in a
mail file, and the receiver would then have to delete
the top header lines. Anyway, I guess with ftp this
obstacle can go away. The bigger problem is not which
one to choose, but to make management take the decision.

Today a manager from a different department, came in my
office and we talked for a while for this very issue.
Too bad we didnt talk much, but I had to leave and
drive to the Univ of Maryland(I teach on Tuesdays)
but the point is that she really had no idea what
bitnet or internet are... she had no clue... She told
me that one customer in california had his mainframe
down, and desperately needed a zap to come up, and
that every minute down is costing them thousands
of dollars(which I believe, because I worked as
a vm systems programmer before myself, and I know
what it means to be "down"). Well, the customer wanted
the zap, and asked if we can send it to him through
internet. I told her I can, but she must first give
me permission from the legal department, because sometime
ago, I had let my coworkers know that I can send fixes
from internet, and the legal department came after my
"ass"...(american expression). Guess what! This time
again the legal department did not allow it, and so
customer had to type the zap in by hand... he wasnt
happy, and I wouldnt be either...

Anyway, I dont want to get you tired with my late night
talk-crisis... Once again, thank you for the mail,
its the best I got so far.

Nick








>
> HI Nick
>
> Although you might be talking about the US Direct Info services, I
> want to comment on the situtation in Holland & Great Brittan.
>
> We are a Dutch account and comunicate (for software problems) with
> System Center Great Brittan. The people there are very helpfull.
> They have a dial in Bulletin Board too. But most of the ZAPs I get
> from support can't be found on that BB. What's even worse.... the
> German System Center User Group have a listserv at DGOGWDG1 were
> you can get more ZAP's than on the Brittish BB! But even the
> listserv has only a limitted number of fixes available. Most of
> the time I end up typing pages of hex numbers.
> As I know there is an EARN/BITNET - IBMMAIL gateway in France.
> I can use it to get to IBM people. But Great Brittan is a problem
> within IBMMAIL. They have different register policies. I have spoken
> with the support center in GB about this but they 1) don't know
> how to make the IBM folkes to register me at the France gateway, or
> 2) just don't have the time (which I can understand, I like them to
> fix my problems, not playing with the network).
>
> An Internet connection would be the BEST sollution.
> An internet connection would help in the following areas:
>   - normally we fax info to SC support in GB & they 1) fax it
>     again to the US (hardly readable at that time)
>     2) type it & send it to the US
>     This costs a lot of work and the loss of data is evident.
>     With a good internet connection this would be 1) fast & 2) no loss
>     of data.
>   - Getting info from SC would also be 1) fast 2) direct aplicable 3)
>     no corruption of data (Is that hex number a D or 0, 8 or B etc..)
>
> So PLEASE get an internet connection.
>
> Many Greetings  Peter Gotwalt
>                 Systems manager
>                 gotwalt@uci.kun.nl   (internet)
>                 U001210@HNYKUN11     (bitnet/earn)
>