MiniMax was designed to handle mostly monochrome work with some color graphics, according to project manager Chris West. The customer is billed by the local member with remote output charged by the destination member. Although there's no required equipment for shops, West recommends using a T1 line for faster transmission. The files go to the server, the order form goes to the shop, and the shop downloads the file from the server. Host level members have their own Silicon Graphics O2 FTP servers and web sites for customers to load onto.
Files go directly to host-level shops instead of through the main server.
The service has been up for about six months. So far there's no complete coverage of the United States, with the South being particularly short of MiniMax sites. And not everyone can join. Cushing and Company marketing director and MiniMax co-founder Mike Duff says a strength of this system is that he personally knows everyone in the network and knows their capabilities. Members of the new Certified Digital Network Affiliates pay no setup costs or monthly fees, but they must learn to trans-mit files over the Internet and be able to communicate with other members to ensure customer service.