If you don't want to build a Web server

So you hunt down an old PC around the office that someone's outgrown, and you download Linux or buy it for a couple of bucks on a CD-ROM.

Then, since you are downloading anyway, you go get the HyperText Transfer Protocol setup for your World-Wide Web server, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol software for e-mail, FTP, Gopher ... you get the picture.

Now all you have to do is install everything.

Linux is pretty easy to install, considering that it's a freeware version of the UNIX operating system. Unfortunately, that's a lot like saying, "It was barrels of fun -- for a trip to the dentist."

Pretty soon you're sitting around at 3 a.m., 18 hours into one of those learn-UNIX-in-24-hours books, trying to figure out why your TCP/IP stack won't let you ping anything, and a brilliant idea suddenly occurs to you:

"Why won't someone just charge me a couple of bucks and do this for me?"

Several companies showed up at NEXPO with exactly that: a server in a box. Step one: Purchase. Step two: Plug it in.

Software Consulting Services of Nazareth, Pa., was showing the SCS Internet Server. The package includes a 90 MHz Pentium with a one gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive and 32 megabytes of RAM.

The machine comes with Linux up and running, including X Windows; a World-Wide Web server up and running; e-mail; a 28.8k bps modem, and Point-to-Point-Protocol software up and running. What's left for you to do? Just punch in the phone number for your Internet provider.

The basic setup is around $8500; final pricing was still being determined, according to Edward Houcek, SCS's vice president of sales..

Digital Equipment Corp. of Merrimack, N.H., was showing a family of Internet servers based on the company's high-performance Alpha RISC processor. The servers include Digital UNIX, Cern's World-Wide Web server, e-mail and DEC's innovative new Web software that supports message forums like those on an electronic bulletin board system.

Prices range from $9995 for a 166 MHz Alpha with a one gigabyte drive, CD-ROM and 32 megabytes of RAM, to $19,995 for a 200 MHz Alpha with a one gigabyte drive, 64 megabytes of RAM and a four gigabyte DAT backup, according to DEC.

Apple Computer introduced a more limited server-in-a-box, the Apple Internet Server Solution for the World-Wide Web.

Prices start at $2707 for a Web server running on a Workgroup Server 6150/66 with 16 megabytes of RAM, a 700 megabyte drive and a CD-ROM, and run up to $8200 for a Web server on a Workgroup Server 9150/120 with 16 megabytes of RAM, a two gigabyte drive, a CD-ROM and a DAT backup.

-- CJF

Apple Computer Inc.,
(408) 996-1010;
Digital Equipment Corp.,
(603) 884-3706;
Software Consulting Services,
(610) 837-8484.

From THE COLE PAPERS, August1995, Copyright (c) 1995, All Rights Reserved.