Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Low-cost Usenet (Re: usenet in Nepal)
Message-ID: <U05CKB2@xds13.ferranti.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
References: <1991Jun14.100804.4867@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <1991Jun15.023819.5589@newshost.anu.edu.au> <1991Jun18.065605.6955@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <1991Jun21.231902.24754@newshost.anu.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 91 22:20:50 GMT

In article <1991Jun21.231902.24754@newshost.anu.edu.au> cmf851@anu.oz.au (Albert Langer) writes:
> >1) Not MS-DOS.

> >building on an MS-DOS base is a recipie for
> >failure or immediate obsolescence.

> But with phone lines the dominant cost, and a requirement for
> cheap connection and use, surely an architecture for developing
> countries should focus even more than in the developed world
> on making full use of the users own PCs.

That doesn't imply MS-DOS, except as a way to boot a better system. Look
at it this way, DOS users are used to running one program at a time. The
Nusenet operating system can just be seen as such a program. What should it
be? POSIX compatible, for sure! Why not MINIX?

Even better would be a new baby UNIX clone. The mechanisms UNIX V7 uses to
handle multitasking, drivers and the like are unsexy, but they're well known.
And they're pretty efficient on small systems: V7 on the PC was faster for
some stuff than MS-DOS... MINIX, with its elegant structure, is slower.

But I have to back Kent's comments on MS-DOS. Depending on it as a platform
will just give use another Fidonet. If you're going to do that, why the
hell not just start with Fido? It works, it's installed worldwide, and it's
certainly cheap!

> X400 [...] Let's not get diverted into
> re-inventing sheels that international standards
> organizations have already invented.)

But X400 is an overly complex system. What's wrong with 16-bit clean RFC822?
-- 
Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180;
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012;         `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
