CRD/SIO and Difax/Unisys, An Update

• To: difax@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: CRD/SIO and Difax/Unisys, An Update
• From: leuthold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mike Leuthold, University of Arizona)
• Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 13:09:14 -0700 (MST)

Well, I heard from Yale.  They do not have a system up and running, despite 
what Unisys thinks.  Oh well.

We are working hard here a Arizona on a script that goes out and gets files 
about once an hour.  It is going to be a week or so to get it working.

They SHOULD be GIF instead of PCX.  I experimented with some of Unisys' images 
and determined that the average image is less than half the size of the PCX 
file after I convert it to GIF.  Considering that bandwidth is one of the major 
bottlenecks in the Unisys operation, they could effectively DOUBLE their 
bandwidth just by changing to GIF images.

Another alternative is to use 'compress' on the images.  PCX images compress 
down to less than 1/2 of their original size.  Unisys then doesn't have to 
worry about doing a pcx to gif so this may be simpler for them.  Another option 
in this regard is to use IDD to distribute the data to Unisys DIFAX 
subscribers.  I don't want to think about the bureaucratic mess one would have 
to go thru to get this set up.

Mike