Re: SETI like tass project

[Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>]

At 10:05 01/02/2002 -0800, Chris Albertson wrote:
>Peter,
>
>The removable disk idea is good.  I did some work a while
>back for Raytheon in Texas.  They had a system fielded in
>the UK (a coincidence) with about 100 computers in a
>couple large rooms.
>They kept the software up to date with disk swaps.  They'd
>ship over a crate of removable drives and the customer
>would return ship the old ones to be recycled.  It worked well
>the those military users never had to learn how to install
>the software.  They kept spare drives on hand so if someone
>messed up a PC they'd simply swap in a good drive. In bulk,
>Raytheon payed only $15.00 for the drive carriers.
>
>The system worked well but CD-ROMS are even cheaper and could
>do the same job.  I think we could make a CD that
>could be either booted and run stand alone or installed onto
>an HD at the user's option.  We could also keep a "dot ISO"
>image on an FTP site for those with fast links and CD burniers

True, although I was thinking more on the amount of data coming out of the 
boxes than going in.
True CD's are cheaper, but if you are having a lot of data coming out, and 
don't want the user to have to learn how to burn a CD, then you could get a 
lot of data on a large disk than on a box of CD's.

It obviously depends on how bare-bones the PC is, or how much the user 
requires.

>Packaging is key.  Not everyone knows how to unpack a tgz file
>and build from source.  The package should assume just a bare PC
>but also contain the .tgz file for those who can use it. or
>those wanting to run on an Alpha or SPARC.

Oh, definitely. The packaging is important. As Tom said in an earlier post, 
this list contains a lot of people who know different areas well, but not 
in others.

Peter



>--- Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk> wrote:
> > At 15:27 29/01/2002 -0800, Chris Albertson wrote:
> >
> > >--- Gamble family <dgamble1@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > ><SNIP>
> > > > I have an old PC I could resurrect if CPU speed is not critical,
> > > > however
> > > > like Tom I am not particularly keen on learning LINUX from
> > scratch.
> > > > Would it
> > > > be possible to distribute an installation CD that would set up
> > the
> > > > operating
> > > > system and all the necessary software for the pipeline?
> > >
> > >Yes that could be done.  It could boot off the CD and run
> > >linux on a RAM disk without installation but I like my
> > >"black box" idea better.
> >
> > Chris, I agree with you. Two jobs ago, I ended up building several
> > "Black
> > Boxes" to act as routers.
> >
> > In that case they were literally a motherboard, a cheap graphics card
> > (most
> > BIOS's won't run without one), 2 network cards and a floppy drive.
> > The
> > entire OS was on one floppy. They are still working fine 2 years on.
> >
> > Also, why not have the disks in removable carriers? That way, any
> > update to
> > the software can be done remotely, and also means that the data once
> > on
> > disk can be sent easily by snail mail.
> >
> > Peter
> >
> > >PCs with no CRTs are dirt cheep to build from surplus parts.
> > >Not having a CRT, keyboard or any way to interact with a human
> > >the feature/complexity creep problem is kept at bay as the end
> > >user sees zero and therefor has an upper limit of zero to learn.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>=====
>Chris Albertson
>   Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com
>   Cell:   310-990-7550
>   Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson@aero.org
>
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