From: jvilhube@diana.cair.du.edu (Jan Vilhuber)
Newsgroups: nyx.misc,du.general,co.general
Subject: Re: FYI - USWest wasting our money again
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:06:26 GMT
Distribution: co
Organization: University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

In article <1992Sep12.031058.15649@mercury.cair.du.edu> elesatz@diana.cair.du.edu (Eric LeSatz) writes:
>All I know are the facts that were posted. And I can say right now
>that I PERSONALLY (that's personally folks) think that a system that
>can't accommodate a simple vt or tvi terminal is going to be a dud. 
>
That's said from a computer-user's point of view. What a lot of people
here don't seem to realize is that a lot of people don't even OWN
computers. We are trying to target a BROAD base. And BTW, there are 
Videotex emulators for both PC and MAc (We even have one for UNIX,
but it's just for testing and not really pretty). The emulation software
is cheap, if you don't know where to get it, and free if you do. So no prob 
there. It even runs under windows (i.e there's a dos version and a windows 
version). 

I'm not trying to defend Videotex. It's old/ it's outdated. No question. But
it serves its purpose, when you try and target a broad spectrum, not just
the computer-literate world.

>As far as the consultant thing, I apologize to the net for my
>uniformed comments, but it sounds all too typical of the computer
>"expert" consultant coming in and telling the executives about all
>this special equipment they need and a special program they will write
>to make it easy to use. I could be wrong, but couldn't practically any
>minicomputer with a decent CPU run a phone number database...and one
>that could be set up in a couple of days??
>
Very true. You can run this off of a PC and install the software in a matter
of hours I suppose. But that's not the point. We had to devellop something
first.

And if anyone is interested where the charge came from (15 cents/minute):
Due to restrictions, we are not allowed to provide information over LATA
boundries. They are roughly equivalent to long-distance/area code boundaries.
This is to keep big bad US WEST in check, but only serves the purpose of
passing additional charges on to the public. In order to provide a service
we feel is very useful, we had to contract someone to do the
interlata transfers, so as not to have a server in ever lata. Imagine
having to update several hundred servers monthly. I call that impossible
and not-feasible. So.. if you would rather have this service FREE (as
we wanted it to be!), I suggest reading up on the reestriction imposed
on US WEST, amd write your congressman/woman to lift these restrictions,
so we can do a better job giving the public a basic service. (Especially
I recommend research on the BROOKS bill, since that is currently being
debated in congress or whereever).

>And Jan...yes, I would use your system for $.15 a minute...assuming
>that I don't have to wade through 5 menus (or be forced to read 10
>pages of directions) to type in the search key.
>
No you don't. The directory search is fairly good, and menus only on request
(i.e help menus). You can do abbreviated searches, you can even do linguistic(?)
searches. We implemented a language database, that allows you to enter things
like "repair computer" or "cut hair" or "eat lunch" or something, and it
will search for the appropriate listings. So searches should be fairly
quick.

-- 
 Jan Vilhuber            | Internet: jvilhube@du.edu or jvilhube@[130.253.1.4]
 (The skydivin' Bass)      | Bitnet  : jvilhube@DUCAIR
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