Re Printer database

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Robert wrote, ≪if Patricia is volunteering to dedicate her old computer
as a server and to organize
everything (as I'm VIRTUALLY CERTAIN she is),≫
You wish. Seriously, I wish I could, but I have to unscramble the billing
status of 600 undocumented subscribers by the first of the year, then
devise a billing routine in dBase (with docs that are a pack of lies).
And my old PC is desperately needed at the paper; I'm keeping the
subscription database and running the mailing list software on two P-1s.
And I do not have broadband and am not likely to get it (tried DSL once
and could not get online half the time, thanks to the EMR interference
hereabouts).

≪if she wants to compile the thing and maintain it, we'll give her space
at XyWWWeb and she could refresh a dedicated page at XyWWWeb whenever she
wishes.≫

This is remotely within the realms of possibility, though not anytime
soon (once the subscriptions are unscrambled, I have to prepare to teach
a grammar course to the CSE again this May)

≪she could donate her old computer to become the XySearch server.≫

What I could donate--except that I thought Robert said he didn't want to
use a desktop or tower as server for fear of fire--is a Compaq Proliant
800. PII, 128 Mb of RAM, SCSI hard drive of 3-4 G, IIRC. BUT it can only
run Win NT 4 (which is currently loaded, through SP, I think 6, but I
cannot get it networked in with the 9x network over there) and Suse
Linux. Maybe OS/2; I'd have to check the docs. As a result of a
complicated round of reimbursed purchases, it's mine, not the office's,
so I could donate it if wanted.

As for database theory, my experience--and I learned this the hard
way--is that "keeping it simple" at the beginning leads to untold
complication later on.
Patricia