Text 35177, 115 rader
Skriven 2009-08-19 17:21:57 av Grant Taylor (108629.fidonews)
  Kommentar till text 35175 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: FidoNews 26:32 [02/05]: Rebuttals To Previous Articles
==============================================================
  Re: FidoNews 26:32 [02/05]: Rebuttals To Previous Articles
  By: Michiel van der Vlist to Grant Taylor on Thu Aug 20 2009 12:04 am

 > I am surprised. I am used to usefull lifespans in the order of five years
 > for that kind of equipment.

Really.  I don't consider these types of printers properly broken in until it
is at least 3 years old.  Usually by 5 years or so it's time to spend $20 on
them for a new set of rollers and a good cleaning.

I think (depending on the moddle) fuser replacements are scheduled between 50
and 100 thousand pages.  Of course you do another set of rollers and cleaning
and you are good to go for quit a while again.

Of course I'm talking about printers that are $500 or more to buy initially.

 > You are not going to tell me they still have some chain printers around as
 > well do you? ;-)

When I first read this I thought you were talking about what I refer to as
"tractor feed" printers.  And yes I still have some of these in production.
These are still much easier to run multi-part paper through.  (The service
industry loves multi-part paper.)

On second reading I think you might be referring to old printers that quite
literally had a chain of letters that indexed around until the desired leter
came under the hammer.  No I do not have any of these in production.  Nor have
I ever seen one of these printers.

 > "Firmware upgadeable" may lead to disappointment, Some fifteen years ago, I
 > bought a 28K VFC modem. The V34 specs has not been finally set and I was
 > told that when they were, an upgrade to V34 would be available. As it
 > turned out a firmware uograde did not do the trick, the harware could not
 > handle V34 and one chip had to be replaced.

Good point.

 > In *prodcution"?! Meaning they are still being manufactured? I do not
 > believe that. "In use"? yes I can believe there are still a few around. Not
 > enough to change the great scheme of things.

Production as in they are still being used to do things.  I.e. the mail servers
I administer are in production sending / receiving email.

 > Such as that hose old chain printers can only print capaitals end
 > customeres don't like their letters printed in capitals  only. ;-)

Did they not have dual case chain printers???

 > TCP/IP over twisted pair is the current winner. Coax is out. Marked by the
 > peak in offered BNC T connectors on flea markets.

Valid distinction.

 > But fiber is on the rise...

*nod

 > IP$ OTOH wil show no measurable slow down in the beginning. Until more or
 > less suddenly the decay sets in and than it will go very fast, like a
 > building collapsing. Some "dust" will remain for a very long time.

I like your dust analogy.  It better captures what I was going after by the
burst and then slowing down of the decay.

 > Good.

;)

 > Good advice.

My clients know that I try to protect them and have what I believe to be their
best intrests in mind.

 > Of course there will. ;-) But they will be a tiny majority that can be
 > ignored liek the people who still believe the earth is flat and the ones
 > who believe Einstion was wrong and speeds add up according to Newton.

*nod*

I consider those groups an extreme minority (or is that what you meant to say).

 > But as they won't be connected to the InterNet, the are not relevant to the
 > matter at hand are they?

I believe they are.  We are now back to the IPv4 (only) BBSs / FTN mailers that
can use the helper programs that I'm talking about to continue running.

 > Now, regarding the "helper programmes"that you mentioned: it occured to me
 > that one of the first incantations of FidoNet over IP use what we call
 > "shims" to make communication programs written to be used with modem, think
 > they were actually dialling out and receiving calls vi aa modem, while the
 > actual connection was over a WAN (or LAN) using TCP/IP. Vmodem is an
 > example. It can be used in combination with Programmes like frontdoor or
 > telix. It accepts Hayes commands and the shim returns appropriate responses
 > to the calling programme.

*nod*

"shim" is a perfect word.  (In fact I've used the same term in different
contexts and I don't know why I did not use it here.  I guess because I wanted
to stick with "helper programs".)

The shims are *exactly* what I'm referring to doing the exact type of thing
that I'm talking about.  :)

It's interesting that you described shims the way you did because I was looking
for a modem emulator for that very type of use recently.  I'll have to see if I
can't run one (preferably open source) down.



Grant. . . .
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