A BYTE SHORT TAKE: LANtastic
Artisoft Speeds Up LANtastic
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
The Artisoft LANtastic network is well-known in the industry
for being simple to use, inexpensive, and amazingly efficient
in its use of memory. It has become an ideal system for small
networks of IBM PCs that want to share printers, hard disks,
NETBIOS-compatible network software, and even CD-ROM drives
without tying up a system as a server. Last year, these
qualities earned LANtastic a BYTE Award of Distinction. The
only problem with LANtastic was that it was a bit slow, with an
advertised speed of 2 megabits per second. People who wanted a
higher speed network would purchase Ethernet hardware from
another vendor, but would still make use of Artisoft's
incredibly compact NETBIOS code.
 
Now Artisoft has decided to issue its own Ethernet hardware,
and it has done so at a price that makes it hard to pass up.
The LANtastic Starter Kit sells for $725 and includes two
half-length Ethernet adaptors, a 25-foot piece of thin Ethernet
cable, and the LANtastic network operating system (licensed for
up to 120 computers). That's all you need to get a small but
pretty sophisticated network up and running.
 
Of course, that's just the start. Each additional Ethernet card
costs $349. Cables are optional, but come in lenths of 25, 50,
and 100 feet. For $99 more, you can get a ROM chip that attaches
to the adaptor and allows a workstation to boot itself from the
server (thus allowing you to set up a diskless workstation).
 
Despite the new higher Ethernet speed, the LANtastic software
still seems almost anorexic in its demand for memory. The
NETBIOS driver takes up less than 15K. To set yourself up as a
LANtastic node requires only 11K more. To be a full LANtastic
server eats up a total of only 55K, including NETBIOS.
 
I found the Ethernet version of LANtastic to be a snap to set
up and a pleasure to use. And now, thanks to Ethernet, the system
is also quite fast. On a low-end PC connected to a high-speed
server, the network is significantly faster than the PC's local
hard disk. My only suggestion -- a minor one -- is that the
manual be a little better organized, and by the time you read
this, a better manual should be available. With products such
as LANtastic, it is going to be harder and harder to find any
non-networked computers.
 
 
The Facts:
LANtastic Ethernet, $725, Starter Kit (2 nodes); $349, each
additional node.
 
Requirements: Two or more IBM PCs or compatibles.
Artisoft, Inc.Artisoft Plaza
575 East River Road
Tucson, AZ 85704
(602) 293-6363
 
                               -- Rich Malloy
 
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