Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    FF253, FF259 & FF260 have been uploaded to TAPE""::user2:[upload]
    
    wayne
    

    I have a feeling that I may be stating a desire that others have
    felt. There are currently 300 FF disks, 260 of them available on
    ENET. The common price for the disks from Fred is about $3.00 a
    disk -- $900 for all 300? The ENET is GREAT; allowing me to download
    the disks I want for free (as long as I have the time). Thanks to
    everyone for the ability!
    
    It takes quite a while to download several disks at 2400 baud. Although
    I can't really dismantle my home system and bring it to work, I
    managed to borrow an A500 once and did a few at 19.2K (but this still takes
    forever).  Can anyone that has a better setup create 50-100 FF disks for
    me (for perhaps a small fee plus the blank disks)? Perhaps we could provide
    some sort of facility in general for this kind of thing? Maybe we
    could cut cost by a factor of 10 for groups of 50?
    

    	Let's see, a disk costs upwards of a dollar unless you take
    advantage of bulk, sale, or loss-leader merchandise, the cost of
    doing the copy (phone bill, wear&tear, YOUR time) is maybe another
    dollar, and you want to add a small fee on that and still come out
    under $3/disk ?  Am I missing something ?  Do you get your disks
    free or value your time at $0/hour ?  

    re: "did a few at 19.2K (but this still takes forever)"
    
    Huh?  I download via 9600 baud modems all the time.  Using XMODEM w/1K
    blocks, it takes about 15 minutes download time per disk.  I usually
    have the next download underway while I'm unZOOing the previous one
    onto floppy.  Ain't multitasking wonderful?

    A technique I use is to copy the file to my VAXstation-3100 and using
    pcdisk (component of PCSA/VAXpc) copy the file to a IBM formated
    floppy.
    
    I then take the floppy home and use (sorry brain just died) IBM pc disk
    handler to copy the files off.
    
    This is great except for one minor detail....
    
    My Boss made me put my 3100 into our demo area, and gave me a gpx
    instead (sob sob sob...).
    
    Stan

    Re: -.*
    
    
    Thanks for the replies, especially .-1 - I'll have to try that.
    
    
    Concerning costs:	Yes, I buy floppies bulk and have 50-100 blank
    ones sitting here. The $3.00 per disk may not seem like much; but
    when you already have them and want $300-$900 for the PD disks,
    it gets hard (especially when you'd rather spend it on more memory).
    
    Concerning download time:	At 19.2K it took me 45 minutes per disk.
    The system I borrowed was an A500 with a single floppy drive and
    the drive slowed me up. I didn't have time to set up as fancy RAM:
    method. I was disappointed that I could only create 4 disks in 3
    hours - 50 would take days. Even a few minutes for a disk/disk copy
    beats your 15 minutes when the list is 50-100 disks long.
    
    
    I sometimes start a download before I go to bed (1200 baud) and
    check it the next morning - but it doesn't always work and it seems
    to me to be a waste of resources. I thought that someone that already
    had the disks and a good configuration could do this quicker.

    Re: .6
    
    Well, you're obviously using a lousy line or the wrong protocol,
    like a small packet kermit.
    
    Take a look at the excerpt from my Xmodem.log file:
    
++++++++  Wed Jan  3 09:40:25 1990
 XMODEM Version 3.6
Command Line : "XMODEM/ONEK/SEND/YMODEM/CRC *.*"
YMODEM Batch Send Started, in BINARY mode
Line speed = 19200 bits per second
----
XMODEM Send Function
File Name: $1$DUS14:[BALZER.FISH]FF275.ZOO;1
File Size 457K, 3653 Records, 467479 Bytes
Estimated transmission time 4 minutes 31 seconds 
1K packet mode chosen
CRC mode requested
Reducing packet size to 128 for tail end of file
Send Complete
3653 Sectors Transfered in 7 minutes 40 seconds 
Transfer Rate = 1016 Characters per Second
----
XMODEM Send Function
Closing down Batch Transmission
Batch Send Complete
                                                       
    
    The same speeds can be achieved with ZModem and probably with a
    1k packet Kermit. 
    The transmission time would have been much closer to the estimation
    if I hadn't downloaded to a floppy but RAM: or a HD instead.
    
    Now, how about these figures...
    
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    Much better. You guessed correctly. When I borrowed the A500, I only
    had SMOKEY on floppy - so KERMIT and XMODEM were the only choices. I
    couldn't disabled the terminal server characteristics, so I had to live
    with KERMIT. I recently grabbed VLT, but I returned the A500 long
    ago and am back to my personal Amiga 2000 with 1200 baud (because
    of TYMNET) - so I still have an undesireable download situation for the
    volume I want (I can't bring my 2000 to work for a very large number of
    reasons).
    
    I'll continue to search for local copies of the floppies, and doing
    my nightly downloading while sleeping, until I come up with something
    better (or hit the lotto).

    Where are you located?
    

    I've done it - thanks to Mr. Roscetti's borrowed A1000 I downloaded
    almost all the disks I needed. Took about 6.5 minutes a disk.
    
    Now if only someone would upload the new 301-310 disks. :-)