On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Jim Phillips wrote:

> Thanks for any insight anyone can provide on MS92.

Hi Jim:   (Great name)

 We used Reflection for a number of years... as budget cuts became a way
of life we had to look for alternatives.  The findings were:

  1) Nothing is as good as Reflection
  2) Nothing costs as much as Reflection

 It became a rather simple choice when it came to pricing.  The cost of
another year of maintenance for Reflection for a limited license for
about 80 (can't recall the exact number) copies was higher than an unlimited
site license PURCHASE of Minisoft for both Windows and Dos machines.

 We started making the switch about 4-5 years ago.  Leaving existing
stations with Reflection and anything new went to Minisoft.

 The programmers really bitched about the lack of functionality and they
were left with Reflection.  As Windows 95 found it's way into the
programming area they switched to Minisoft.  Fortunately, Minisoft has
improved greatly over the past few years.

 The biggest problem had been existing applications.  A number of them
depended on Reflection and Reflection Command Language to perform
downloads, certain automated functions, and print to PC slave printers.

<whine>
 Even though I developed a number of routines for the programmers to
determine if their application was working with a Reflection emulator or
Minisoft the programmers were "reluctant" to use it.

 I left the College for 14 months and came back to find the
programmers still hadn't addressed the issue of different terminal
emulators.

 A project to replace all outdated PC's with Windows 95, Pentium based
stations meant that Minisoft was becoming predominant and a number of
Reflection stations were disappearing.  Suddenly...  there was a problem
doing downloads and printing... hmmmm?
</whine>

 The latest version of Minisoft alleviated the printing problem and I've
written two C programs for the upload and download of ascii files.  The
programs determine if you are running Reflection or Minisoft and perform
the file transfer accordingly.

 If you'd like a copy of them let me know.

Jim
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James R. Alton
Systems Analyst
Mohawk College                        phone: (905) 575-2281
135 Fennell Ave. W.                     Fax: (905) 575-2302
Hamilton, Ont., Canada L8N 3T2        Email: [log in to unmask]
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