I would like to spin further a bit on this thread, from there on
where Eko (on 28 Aug) wrote:
--------------------quote:--------------
.. perhaps someone could write a web interface for
X-Windows terminal. Using this and a HTTPd, any DOS browser
program could remotely access the server.
However, this approach definitely not advisable for countries
where local phone calls charged by minutes (the very reason why
this thread get started ;-) In this case, alternative
connectivity methods probably would be better:
* The plain old coax (digital, short distance)
* Intercom modem (also via cable, but audio-modulated, so could
reach longer distance)
* Radio modem or WaveLAN
* Infrared or LASER modem
* Another alternative connectivity methods that could bypass
telco network.
-------------------unquote.-------------
The very physical connection between clients and server is an
eventually complex/expensive part - LAN/coax cabling is restricted to
some distance, and can be expensive to install (if at all you are
permitted to drill holes for cables between appartements or offices).
And sure I did not think of using the *public* phone network for
access - precisely *not* ! But what you have since deregulation of the
"downstream" telco appliances is that you can have your own "intranet"
phone network this side of the jack of the one "public" line on. And a
pseudo phone network with just the two twisted wires is most easy to
set up - in newer appartment houses and office buildings you would even
have numbers of unused twisted-pair connections going all about (in old
European appartment blocks there are sometimes lots of abandoned ones
from older, former telco installations, door openers/parlophones and the
like); or with a group of single smaller houses ("village"; with
coax/LAN you would have problems there) it's cheap and easy to draw such
connections.
(Eg., in Germany until recently you were not allowed to go further than
50 m with a "private" wired connection: everything beyond was the
monopoly of the PTT; and the latter, until recently, had to allow for
*any* - even non-galvanic - connection of any installation downstream of
the incoming line.)
Thus kind of a pseudo-PBX where only the server uses the outside
(dedicated, metered) Telco line, and the connection wiring would not be
for voice but only for the client-PCs. (Would save from other Telco
troubles too - in the manual of the most recently bought modem I find
*pages* about "only authorised equipment/personnel" that may be used in
Canada, Australia, NZ, etc.) In fact it would be just to employ one of
the standard PBX-boxes right on. Most of them have their own power
supply too (one thing where Telcos get nasty, if applications on the
line draw to much current), and this telephony type of electrical
installation is simple and "approriate technology". (One important
thing in rural/tropical situations would be to protect against lightning
though.)
Now: with such a "stand-alone telephone (intra)network" the clients
could use no matter what vanilla modem (and any dial-up/PPP utility,
i.e. all the small-resources DOS things would be fine). But what would
you need at the server - an own battery of modems for, say, nearly the
number of possible dialing-in connections of your Cybercafe/ISP
community ? That could run into expenses; is there another solution ?
And what would you need to run on the server then - the basic idea being
that's just one outside (metered) line to be used, and flat rates or no
such, to be hung-up when none of the clients needs to connect to the
real net ?
Would it be something like "The alternative (my alternative)" which
Steven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> described (2 Sep) ?
--------------------quote:--------------
.. to use the server as a
TCP/IP router and let each of the clients do its own processing
(with Arachne). In this case an ordinary 486 (or even a high-
end 386) running CLI Linux can be used as the server.
-------------------unquote.-------------
// Heimo Claasen // <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> // Brussels 1999-09-14
HomePage of ReRead - and much to read ==> http://www.inti.be/hammer
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