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From: johnux@zimbix.uz.zw (John Sheppard) To: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 92 14:35:19 ZST Hi Randy Your message has been sitting around for ages - my apologies - very busy, powercuts and have also been away on leave for part of the time. The situation is Zimbabwe is as follows: The Computer Centre at UZim is linked to internet for email only through a 2400 baud dial up modem - which operates only outside office hours. There is no dammed dial tone during office hours! The lunch hour is sometimes fine though. The machine is a simple 386/100 meg hard/4 megs memory/running Xenix 2.3.4 + smail + elm. About 120 users at the moment - some very enthusiastic, some very light users. I have only three terminals to zimbix in the Computer Centre, one in Computer Science, one going into the Institute of Mining Research. I am awaiting more multiserial cards, bigger hard disk, etc. The main problems are the lack of a campus wide network here and the pathetic 2400 baud link to the outside world. The Dept of Computer Science is involved in ESANET (Eastern and Southern African Network) - a Canadian funded project using fido/ frontdoor and working through various NGOs. At the University here they have about 30 users and must be close to saturation on their telephone facilities. I handed over the ESANET to comp sci as I did not have the staff to run it in addition to my Internet activities. I think that they chose the wrong software anyway! I/we need a dedicated line to Johannesburg to give us FTP and news etc. X.25 is starting to function in Zimbabwe. UZIm has made application for X.25 facilities and I will try them - may be more efficient and cheaper than dialup. There is equipment for Healthnet - satellite packet radio, health- linked material coming largely to and from St John's Memorial Hospital in Newfoundland - but the postal authorities have not issed a license for it and it remains unused. I doubt whether the medicos will ever get it functioning. Incidentally, the fido operation in comp sci here and my internet are not linked by ufgate - the chairman of comp sci says he has not got the time to set it up. Strange world we live in. I guess I am the person to contact in zimbabwe. There are some plans to connect the second, new university in Bulawayo through me but nothing has come of it yet. That's about it. Regards John PS I will be at the Fall Interop in San Francisco - will you perchance be there? -- Prof John G Sheppard University of Zimbabwe johnux@zimbix.uz.zw Director P.O. Box MP 167 Computer Centre Harare, Zimbabwe Phone: +263 4 303211 xt 1378 UZim FAX: +263 4 732828
