Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 08:46:11 -0600
From: monty-hampton@uokhsc.edu (Monty Hampton)
Subject: Renote Access (Summary)

Thanks to all of those who responded to my inquiry regarding remote access.
Special thanks to Alan Hewat, Bruce Goldstein, Matthew Ahrens, Subbarayudu
Darisipudi and Dennis D. Davison.  

The results are summarized below. 

>Is there an A/B switching device available that will automatically switch
>to the modem for incoming calls or is there another solution to the A/B
>situation (short of always having to switch back and forth each day)?

Mixed reviews here. Some suggested manual switching (which I wanted to
avoid). There are auto-switching devices, but no on responding had
experience with them.  

>Is it best to purchase a modem capable of booting the system or should I
>leave my system on and just turn off the monitor (or leave the monitor on,
>too)?

Suggestion here was to go with PowerKey/PowerKey Remote for turning the CPU
on/off. If not and the host CPU is to stay powered, it has been suggested
that the monitor be turned off. 

>Should I go with ARA or Timbuktu?

Most of the respondents explained that there is a difference between these
two apps. 
Alan Hewat reprinted a previous post:

>I use ARA and have tried ScreenLink and Timbuktu, which is similar but
>(much) more expensive and (a little) more powerful.
>
>Neither ScreenLink nor Timbuktu are meant to replace ARA.  You can
>use them without ARA, but you can also connect with them through ARA.
>They allow you to see and control the desktop of another Mac over
>Appletalk or a modem connection  (or even ethernet).  With a 14.4k
>modem they are quite usuable when you get used to the slow screen
>re-drawing and mouse movement.
>
>ARA is different.  It allows you to connect to appletalk via a modem.
>Then you can mount the disk of the remote Mac on your local Mac's
>desktop using system 7 filesharing.  You still have to transport files
>over a relatively slow modem, but you can use applications on the
>local Mac to edit them etc, which is usually much faster than
>transmitting the quickdraw screen re-drawing via the modem.
>
>ARA is extremely useful if you want access to files on your remote
>Mac.  If you put Appletalk on your Unix machines, you can also manage
>and edit Unix files remotely. You can simultaneously connect a terminal
>emulator (Versaterm) through ARA.  Apple have announced ARA 2 and
>an ARA server nubus card that will serve up to 4 remote users -  you
>can put up to 4 such cards in nubus slots in the server Mac.
>
>So get ScreenLink - at $30 its a great deal - but think about getting
>ARA as well.  (If you need to see the remote screen in color or to
>connect to PCs, you'll need Timbuktu instead of ScreenLink).

I might add that it has been further explained to me that ARA works like an
extension of the MacOS, whereas the other programs operate on top of the
MacOS at both locations and since they transmit quickdraw screens, they are
slower and clumsier than ARA.

Hope this helps others as well. I will now embark on the expensive and time
consuming process of trying to setting something up.

Cheers!