🚀 go-pugleaf

We recently received TOPS in the mail and I am rather disappointed.  To me, 
networking software should be transparent, simple, and most important of 
all, robust.  TOPS just isn't tops!  

Actually, the Mac version is much nicer than the DOS version (do tell!).  
You install a DA, some drivers, and an INIT using an installation program 
that they furnish.  Reboot your Macs, and voila, you are up and running.  
You can mount volumes as Read Only, One Writer Only, or Many Writers, and 
you can have password protection as well.  The programs use the simple 
PUBLISH and MOUNT scheme -- the server publishes whatever disks or 
individual HFS folders to be available on the network, and the client can 
then view and mount whatever is published.  

So far so good.  

My real problem with it is that it isn't robust.  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.  

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.  

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.  

Although the following problems aren't really Centrams fault, they are 
issues that have to be dealt with in terms of networks in general.  

1.  The Finder was never meant to be used with multiple users per disk.  
    Problems like trashing desktop files (happens often since there is only 
    one for all those simultaneous users!), files put in the trash showing 
    until empty trash is executed, etc.  make life difficult.  
   
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.  
   
3.  Lots of programs don't like to run from write protected volumes because 
    they need to create temp files.  In addition, a lot of these programs 
    create temp files that don't have unique names, so they crash if two 
    people use them at once from the same folder.  
   
Now on to the PC end.  

Although TOPS is supposed make the differences between OSs seem 
transparent, it doesn't do a very good job of it.  It does a pretty good 
job with handling the file naming issue (DOS is 8.3 with no blanks, Mac is 
31 with blanks, etc.).  However, a simple thing like being able to make a 
copy of a mac application residing on the IBM from the IBM doesn't work.  
This is because Centram split up the data and resource forks into two 
separate DOS files, with the resource fork being hidden (making them 
contiguous would make more sense to me but there must have been some good 
reason not to do that).  So you can't copy any file that has a resource 
fork properly.  

On the DOS version, when you go to publish a volume, it runs a program 
called XSYNC.  I'm not exactly sure why they need to run it, but it seems 
to do a tree find from the directory you are publishing on down.  
Publishing a 20 Meg hard disk with lots of file took between 5 and 10 
minutes.  THIS IS REDICULOUS!  

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.  

When using the IBM as a client to a server Mac, you get full hierarchical 
access to HFS volumes.  When you try to do this in the opposite direction, 
you only get an MFS volume.  Why?  Who knows, it doesn't say why in the 
manual.  

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.  

As you can tell, I'm not satisfied.  I don't see any reason why it can't be 
good -- it just needs more work.  If Centram keeps at it, it may evolve 
into something useful.  At this point, I'd be scared to share data with 
it.  
-- 
Robert Berlinger
Systems Analyst
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

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