🚀 go-pugleaf

a response to an earlier posting:


Subject: vms fileservers for mac's
Cc: cetron
Status: R


	We are using the appletalk for vms software provided by alisa systems
in pasadena..... Much more info can be gotten from them directly:

Alisa Systems, Inc.
221 E. Walnut St., Suite 230
Pasadena, Ca  91101
818 - 792-9474

(if you call please mention that you got there info via me on the arpanet, this
is NOT for kickbacks - I have no association 'cept as satisfied customer - but
I am trying to convince them to get an internet/usenet link of some kind....)

	Any way a quick summary:

1. fileserver - somewhat slower than a local floppy, but adequate...allows up
to 15 volumes (floppy equivalents) per server (and you can have multiple 
servers per vax).  Each volume appears to the mac user as a seperate volume 
icon on the desktop.  Volumes can be password protected, or marked as readonly.
Additionaly, 'temp' files (such as word temps, excel resume files, etc) are 
coded by the 'username' picked in the chooser upon startup.  Desktop files are
also coded this way so different people can have different format desktops in 
the same partition.

2. File Server Utility - allows files to be imported/exported from the vms
file system.  This allows dir of the various files on the mac volumes and 
manipulation of them..... I have been able to have out sect'ys compose letters
under word 3.0, then save them on the fileserver volumes, picked them up, and
brought them over to vms and subsequently sent them over the arpanet.....I have
also been able to use fsu to recover word temp files when word 3.0 crashes.

3. laser spooler support - you can set up several laser spoolers which look 
just like laserwriters to the mac's but will spool the output and then send
it back out to laserwriters out on the appletalk network.  Utilities also exist
to allow users on other decnetted machines (or even the actual server vms 
machine) to spool files out to the appletalk laserwriters.  An option exists to
spool files that are already postscript.  Additionaly, we have a unix vax send
via ftp postscript output from the Adobe Transcript package to out vms file
server and have it spool these files out to the laserwriters.

	All is all, it is a very good package, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the people
at alisa will a) answer the phone, and b) talk to you and help you.  As the
administrator of a facility, the service after the sale is as critical as the
sale itself - and these people are good....

( in the future, they will support remote decnet login from the mac, as well as
remote decnet task 'linking' - maybe for mail type stuff.....)

-ed cetron
Computer Services Manager
Center for Engineering Design
Univ of Utah
cetron@utah-cs.arpa