Can A/UX handle multiple terminal access for users?

[Samudra E. Haque]

Hello,
	This summer I had  a chance to work in Bangladesh as an
independent computer consultant for a while and ran into an
interesting situation there - pertaining to UNIX, MAC II's and
computers in general. If I may I'd like to tell you
what's happening over there and I'd like to find out specific
information about a couple of questions. Please feel free to  contact
me via e=mail or otherwise if you can help.

SCENARIO: Bangladesh is a country that has just recently "discovered"
computer technology. Previously a British colony and then a slave
nation to Pakistan, society in that country is old, stuffy and
beuracratic (sp?) . While the technology is always welcomed is
becoming to be used very heavily, information is at a premium and
often viewed with suspicion. 
	It is a "sellers market", if an organisation wants to purchase
a (computer) system, then they go out  and ask for a bid via tender.
Often times the specification is simply "computer system for 16
users". Concepts of operating systems and software and hardware are
just not there yet. The organisations selling computers (apple, ibm,
dg, icl, etc.) will gladly sell you a computer system that is "just"
great for your needs. (sarcasm). ANY problem that you have - their
computer system will suffice for it. CP/M, CDOS, S/360, Cobol,BSC are
being pushed as the "wave of the future".
	At this point people like me come into their arena, trying to
make some sense out of what the solution might be. As I said before, 
even my efforts were viewed suspiciously - my clients did not have the
knowledge or the expertise to know whether I was shortchanging them.
Among other things, I found it  very difficult to go up to some big hot 
shot in the government and say "well, why don't you go UNIX and C and 
IP/TCP and KERMIT and RS-232".. "Its a world wide standard you know".

The answer was (and still is) "but we are not the world are we ? Our
needs are necessarily different".


I tried to push for UNIX and Ethernet based networking - my experience
as a (psuedo) computer services adminstrator (i.e., student job with
those responsibilities) have hopefully given me a good insight as to
the way the world does and doesn't turn. The competition came from
people who pushed IBM PC's as the solution, BSC and Cobol, Macintosh
SE's and Laserwriter NTX, Appletalk etc. 
	Maybe they were "appropriate solutions", but what about multiuser 
and multitasking systems like minicomputers and supermini VAX class machines? 
Currently people there are "afraid" of purchasing such "large" systems.. 
maintenance and price considerations are very large considerations.

I ended up suggesting to a particular organisation that they choose UNIX as the
operating system and that they start of with machines either based on
the 80386 chip running XENIX or equiv, or Mac II's with A/UX. 


QUESTION: Does A/UX support or intend to support multiple users? 
	Does A/UX support the regular complement of terminals and types?
	How many terminals can be attached to Mac II (with or without boards)
	What console specifications for Mac II with A/UX?
	What future plans are there for the Mac II hardware (expansion)?

	What RDBMS, Spreadsheet and Communication programs have been 
	announced for A/UX (and when are they available).

	I am interested in INGRES, Lotus look alike Spreadsheets and 
	large capacity disk drives (>1GB ? ). The organisation that I 
	worked for has a 1,000,000 item collection of  antiquities that are
	documented and indexed on paper. There are  appproximately
	three times as much items that  are still to be catalogued!

thanks very much for your time,


-- 
Samudra E. Haque
Computer Science Laboratories, Computer Science Department
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
(1)-(612)-625-0876 || haque at umn-cs.cs.umn.edu || haque at umn-cs.UUCP