🚀 go-pugleaf

Re: Tim Maroney's response to my TOPS complaint list.

First of all, thank you for responding -- it's unusual to get an 
informed response on this kind of thing.  

I have some questions and comments --

> >For instance, if the
> >server or client crashes, TOPS doesn't seem to register that, and either
> >thinks it is still talking or just hangs.

> A dialog that says that there are difficulties always comes up within ten to
> twenty seconds after the connection is broken, if there is a pending client
> file operation.  If there is no pending operation, then the connection may
> be broken silently, which will cause any further client operations to return
> an error status.  I am not sure what you mean by "thinks it is still
> talking", but we have not observed the system hanging, nor had such behavior
> reported to us either in beta test or since release.

This problem was reported to me, and I couldn't get it to happen
when I tested it myself.

> >Also, some very common actions can bring down the server as far as the
> >network is concerned.  Since TOPS runs as what Centram calles a "hidden
> >DA", it will stop functioning if you go into the minifinder!  Although this
> >is mentioned in the manual, I think this is a rediculous restriction.
>
> That's why we got rid of it!  The manual does say that, and it was true in
> the initial beta release.  In the released product, however, TOPS works fine
> with the MiniFinder.  The release notes mention that this has been fixed.

My fault.  Although I did read the release notes, I didn't see this.  It's
not as well advertised as the note in the manual that says that it won't run.
It also reinforces my dislike of release notes.  

> >Copying files on the server brings clients to a grinding halt, and
> >formatting any floppy (although you get a warning) will kill off any
> >clients you have.
> 
> Disk initialization does not crash either the server or the client; it just
> makes the clients wait until the server has finished formatting the disk.
> Scheduling presents difficulties on the Mac because of the lack of
> multitasking.  We have gone to great lengths to make TOPS run concurrently
> with virtually all Mac software.

I think the alert may have confused us into believing they got 
killed off.  It said something like, "if you continue, clients 
may lose work" meaning that they would be killed off.  Maybe this 
message should be changed to "clients will have to tread water 
until the init is over" :-).  Also, I didn't always get the 
message.  

I didn't mean to make it sound like it was TOPS' fault that the 
disk initialization halted or killed the network, in fact, it's 
pretty nifty that they were able to patch in the alert.  But I 
did want to let potential customers or users know about the 
inconvenience.  

> >2.  Copy protected programs don't like to run over the network.  In fact,
> >    at least one which I tried (Fontographer with its heavy protection, damn
> >    them) crashed the client system altogether.
>  
> Of course!  In almost all cases it would violate the license agreements on
> the software to run over the network in this fashion.  Should a developer
> wish to allow such access, we are working on a licensable network copy
> protection scheme.

No one can tell me that it's normal for any program to crash my 
system under any circumstances, no matter what the situation.  A 
mere "NO DICE" alert would suffice.  As I indicated, this flame 
is not directed at CENTRAM or TOPS.  

> >Publishing a 20 Meg hard disk with lots of file took between 5 and 10
> >minutes.  THIS IS REDICULOUS!
> 
> And unneccessary.  The naive user interface, TOPSMENU, does always invoke
> XSYNC.  We expect that if you are publishing a whole hard disk, you will do
> it fairly often, and so will set up a batch file that publishes it using the
> TOPS commands.  The command language interface (which you would use in a
> batch file) does not do the XSYNC unless you ask it to, and the XSYNC does
> not need to be done every time.

I knew that it was possible to publish without the XSYNC.  The 
problem was that it wasn't clear to me from the manual when you 
do or don't need to run XSYNC.  Does it need to be done every 
time the filesystem on the PC gets changed?  If so, what is the 
reason for implementing it in this (less automatic) way?  

> >We tried their simple example of creating a lotus spreadsheet and then
> >reading it in with Excel.  The IBM crashed as soon as we tried to access
> >the spreadsheet from the Mac.  (We subsequently got this to work, who knows
> >why.) Great.
> 
> We do this all the time, and this has never happened.  It only happened once
> to you.  I see no reason to assume TOPS is at fault.

Simply because it never happened until we ran TOPS.  It may have 
been caused by some conflict with other memory resident 
utilities, mouse driver, I don't know (thank you Apple for the 
sanity of DA's!!!).  

> >Aside from all these problems, it generally doesn't do much!  It doesn't
> >have an email application, it doesn't have a "chat" mode, and no spooler
> >either.  Compared to some of the DOS compatible networks I've heard about,
> >I'd say this is a serious lack of functionality.
> 
> TOPS is a file service product, and has always been represented as such.
> Now that most of the work on TOPS is done, we are moving on to other network
> products, including the three you mentioned, remote terminal service to
> Internet hosts, and other keen things.

I didn't mean to make it sound like TOPS was misrepresented in 
the advertising.  On the contrary, I knew exactly what I was 
getting.  I was simply making a general comparison of its level 
of functionality to some of the existing networks that I've 
seen.  Good to hear that new things are on the drawing table.  

As a final word, several of the problems that I mentioned will be 
fixed with new utilities, functionality, etc., in the "next 
release." It may be that I expected too much too soon, but I've 
been waiting for a good network product for so long, and I'm beginning to 
get impatient.  

TOPS is well priced, and may yet turn out to be a Classic Mac 
product (the finest kind).  

Thanks for the comments and explanations, Tim.
-- 
Robert Berlinger
Systems Analyst
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

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