Hello Jonathan,

On Jan 08 22:44 96, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard of 2:440/4 wrote:

 JdBP> Who ?

maybe the following discussion is of some interest for you :


     24-Oct-95 18:57 CET
Sb:  Discontinuance of EMEA DAP BBS
Fm: INTERNET:drieth{at}VNET.IBM.COM

To: JORDAND --CROVM3   D Jordan

Reference:  ColoradOS/2 Conference, October 15 - 20, 1995

I attended the ColoradOS/2 Conference, which had world-wide
attendance.  About 33% of the 450 plus attendees were from
countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and
Asia Pacific (AP).

At a general Question and Answer session, the subject of support
came up.  I described our IBM Solution Developer HomePage
and how our strategy was to move in this direction over time
for information, as well as accepting questions and answers.

Three European gentlemen approached me after the session
and were quit adamant that the Internet solution did not
have any E-Mail features.

PROBLEM:
=======

In July 1995, the OS/2 DAP in EMEA transitioned support from a BBS
to the Internet.  The BBS had several news groups and forums on
it that could be accessed with E-Mail.  With the Internet services
there is a need for:

----> Alternative to TCP/IP
----> Mailing use - each SD stated that they downloaded
        hundreds of pages to be read, edited and redistributed
        to their users.
----> On-line connection for above information is not as good.
----> WEB is OK for certain material, but:
      a) not all countries have access
      b) large volumes are difficult to view on line.

ACTION NEEDED:
=============
Would you please:

- research the DAP, BBS closing
- find out if there is another alternative to E-Mail information
  or is Internet now the ONLY vehicle?
- Contact these people on my behalf with answers to the above.

Listed below is their mailing information and E-Mail IDs.

Thanks, Dell

Mario Semo                        Harry Bush
Technologien & Entwicklung        Bank of Latvia, Member of Board
Kirchner Soft GMbH                 of Governors
Mailufterlweg 1                   2a K. Valdemara Str.,
A-3123 Oberwolbling               Riga, LV-1050, Latvia
Tel. +43(0)27 86/21 45            Tel. (+371) 232-3796
Compuserve.COM(100414-1025)       Harry{at}castle.riga.lv

     25-Oct-95 08:12 CET
Sb:  Discontinuance of EMEA DAP BBS
Fm: Harry Bush > INTERNET:harry{at}fgate.castle.riga.lv

Dear A. M. (Dell) Rieth,

Thank you for quick action regarding our conversation during ColoradOS2
conference.  I would like to add few words about technical situation.
If possible, please forward this letter to the same in-IBM addresses as
your original letter.

Tuesday October 24 1995 from drieth{at}VNET.IBM.COM to Harry Bush:

 d>  In July 1995, the OS/2 DAP in EMEA transitioned support from a BBS
 d>  to the Internet.  The BBS had several news groups and forums on
 d>  it that could be accessed with E-Mail.  With the Internet services
 d>  there is a need for:

 -+-->> Alternative to TCP/IP

Alternative to dialog TCP/IP access.  Many organizations including our
Bank cannot and will not allow direct dialog TCP/IP access to workplaces
via local LAN's (mainly due to security reasons).  Therefore direct
WWW browsing is technically not possible from developers workstations.
Direct WWW access is also literally several orders of magnitude more
expensive in our country because we pay for each transferred byte.
E-mail via TCP/IP is OK.

During last weeks of functioning of EMEA BBS there were many messages
>from different countries, all stating approximately the same: "no BBS
means no EMEA DAP for us".  Unfortunately this had no effect and BBS
was closed.  Our developers are effectively cut off of EMEA DAP since
July 1995.  It is really a big loss.  We make some OS/2 software for our
internal use in Bank of Latvia, and EMEA DAP has been valuable source
of "know how".  It helped a lot for consulting too.

 -+-->> Mailing use - each SD stated that they downloaded
 -+-->> hundreds of pages to be read, edited and redistributed
 -+-->> to their users.

To be exact, QWK packets containing incremental adds to all conferences
were regularly downloaded from EMEA BBS, transformed into our internal
office mail format.  Then they were distributed via internal LAN's to
EMEA DAP members (to their workstations).  Usually, automated search/
analyze procedures were used by our EMEA DAP members to find quickly
information they needed. Only authorised EMEA DAP members had access to
this information.

After closing EMEA DAP BBS we suggested NNTP news via authorized telnet
as possible replacement for QWK downloading.  However this proposal
was rejected.  Only WWW access to EMEA DAP is available now.

 -+-->> On-line connection for above information is not as good.
 -+-->> WEB is OK for certain material, but:
 -+-->>
 d>       a) not all countries have access
 d>       b) large volumes are difficult to view on line.

WWW browsing is certainly very interesting... but it is terribly slow
and expensive way to access information because of manual work during
whole process.  Instead of direct search in our internal message base
(seconds or minutes) developer will loose working time (hours and days)
manually surfing Internet, even if we would build isolated workplaces
with dialog access to WWW.  That is not acceptable anyway.

Best wishes,                                Harry Bush
                                   Certified OS/2 Engineer
                                   Wednesday October 25 1995 08:08

     25-Oct-95 13:17 CET
Sb:  Problems with the DAP service
Fm: "EMEADAP/IBMPSPEU" > INTERNET:emeadap{at}VNET.IBM.COM

Hello Mario,

I understand that you met with Dell Rieth at ColoradOS/2. He says that you have
problems using the service that we now provide through the Internet and e-mail.
This is how he summarised your ( and two others) problems :

In July 1995, the OS/2 DAP in EMEA transitioned support from a BBS
to the Internet.  The BBS had several news groups and forums on
it that could be accessed with E-Mail.  With the Internet services
there is a need for:

----> Alternative to TCP/IP
----> Mailing use - each SD stated that they downloaded
      hundreds of pages to be read, edited and redistributed
      to their users.
----> On-line connection for above information is not as good.
----> WEB is OK for certain material, but:
      a) not all countries have access
      b) large volumes are difficult to view on line.

I don't know how acurately this descibes the problems you are facing but I'll
answer these.

TCP/IP is required to access the Internet. If you have a dialup link direct
from your machine all you need is the part of TCP/IP that comes with the Bonus
Pack.

You do not need to read the customer fora on line. They are available in zipped
format on the ftp site and then you can read them off-line using FORBROWS or a
similar tool (this was available on at least one of the DAP CDs). Downloading
in this was should be no more costly that the BBS it is subject to the same
traffic problems. It is not possible to download just your messages for
off-line reading anymore.

We are continually trying to speed up the connection to the server we use.

Even if you don't have Internet access, as long as you have an email ID you can
take advantage of our Q&A support. Send any support questions you have to
emeadap{at}vnet.ibm.com.

We only put managable sized pages on our web site. These can be downloaded
dirct to your machine or viewable on line. Larger files we make available for
download from our ftp site in compacted format.

The EMEA OS/2 DAP is now part of the Solution Developer Program (SDP). The SDP
is an umbrella developer program that covers all of the IBM platforms. We
provide the support for EMEA OS/2 developers as part of that program. The SDP
is providing a single interface to the whole of the developer community and
that is through the internet. Our service is now only available through the
internet.

Best regards,
Joanna Hodgson.

.....


> 1) i was not aware of this possiblity. (and i wrote mails to you and mike
> parker multiple times - see below 2 replys definitly saying the way to use
> EMEA support is WWW. and thats the reason i'm so unhappy and why i never used
> EMEA dap support anymore. (and i have used it since 1992).  WWW is a absolute
> NO-NO and ShowStopper. (IMO : WWW is for gamblers and secretarys, but not for
> professioal bussiness).

I'm afraid that IBM is going more towards WWW as it's delivery channel, not
just for end user information, but also for developer support.

There is a little confusion with the customer fora, let me try and clarify. The
customer fora are are available on-line behind the protected area of DAP WWW
pages. From here you can browse, post or reply on any forum. Additionally, once
a week (Fridays) I place all the customer fora (zipped) onto the DAP ftp site.
These can be viewed off-line (FORBROWS). However, to reply or post to a forum
you have to come on-line for the time it takes you to paste your message and
click the send button. Posting and replying can only be done on-line.

> 2) can i WRITE messages just via ftp?

You cannot append via ftp.

> 3) whats the frequency of the zip updates? when i write a messages requiring
> an reply i don't want to wait 1 month till the next zip is created.

The files are updated once per week.

> 4) can the ftp'ing of the mail packages be automated? (as long as EMEA used a
> bbs i used a Terminal Emulation with keyboard Macros and so i was able
> download QWK's at 0:00 each 2 days.)

The following code can be used to automate downloading of ftp files. However,
as I said you can't append except on-line.

/* Download the OS2WARP cforum */
call RxFuncAdd 'FtpLoadFuncs', 'rxFtp', 'FtpLoadFuncs'
call FtpLoadFuncs

rc = FtpSetUser('www.europe.ibm.com','anonymous','100414.1025{at}compuserve.com')
rc = FtpChDir('psmemea/dap/cfora/os2')
rc = FtpGet('os2warp.zip', ftpfile, 'Binary')

call FtpLogoff

call RxFuncDrop 'FtpLoadFuncs'

> 5) in the following mail you explicit wrote that i can add to C-foras ONLY
via
> WWW.

Hopefully, this is clear now.

Best regards,
Joanna Hodgson.

     25-Oct-95 18:14 CET
Sb:  Problems with the DAP service
Fm: Harry Bush > INTERNET:harry{at}fgate.castle.riga.lv

Hello Joanna!

 e> I understand that you met with Dell Rieth at ColoradOS/2. He says that
 e> you have problems using the service that we now provide through the
 e> Internet and e-mail.

To explain our problems, I sent additional letter to Dell Rieth.
Copy of my letter to Dell Rieth and other persons involved follows
in my next message to you,  I will send also this my letter to the
same cc list, not duplicating forwarded message they already have.

I believe that sufficient workaround could be found to overcome
our difficulties (and I'm quite sure that similar difficulties
occured for many DAP people in different European countries).
If you remember, many of them did foresee significant difficulties
to access EMEA DAP via WWW-only before BBS was closed yet.  However
there was no chance for EMEA DAP members to influence this decision
(no "opinion poll", so to say).

FTP-ing _incremental_ (e.g. on daily basis) archive files of DAP
forums could be kind of weak read/only replacement of BBS access if
message headers are well described and could be parsed automatically
e.g. with some REXX script, into our standard msg bases (JAM format).

However it's not exactly understandable for me how we might send
our E-mail msgs to appropriate DAP conferences.  Is there any automated
service like Email-to-conference servers which exist on some
Internet sites?

The simpliest way IMHO could be automated WWW-to-NNTP two-way
service on your site, as Egons Bush suggested last summer.  There
are standard software tools to work with news in NNTP format (or
any other standard format you might find more appropriate).
To keep distribution of these DAP conferences under control you
might want to establish restricted passworded account which we could
use to telnet to your site and receive conferences in news format
or FTP them in incremental archived format.

I would like to emphasize here that I highly appreciate EMEA DAP
efforts (and your personal input) to develop WWW site - current
"font edge" of Internet service.  This certainly _is_ the way to go.

However last 4 month people like we cannot use new service and have
been deprived of previous BBS service.  Would be nice to find some
acceptable way to solve this problem, because DAP (or SDP) is really
a vital part of OS/2 chance to survive. I am very serious about that.

Best wishes,                                   Harry Bush
                                     Certified OS/2 Engineer
                                     Wednesday October 25 1995 17:03

 WARPED!, Mario

--- Msgedsq/2 2.2e