Message-ID: <v0213050aad86cc803ed9@[196.20.30.2]> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 13:40:07 +0100 From: Dr Eberhard W Lisse <mailto:el@LISSE.NA> Subject: Re: Traditional I.T. Before the Internet ?! To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
At 9:34 AM 2/4/96, Abubakr Alkhalifa wrote: >On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, Wilbur Streett wrote:
>
>> Traditional I.T. before the Internet? Please define "Traditional I. T."
>> for me.
>
>Thanks for asking. In terms of hardware, I meant by "Traditional I.T."
>stand-alone computers, as opposed to networked or Internetable. In
>terms of software, I was referring to appropriate information systems
>development that run on such hardware.
I wrote that. 386/486/Pentiums can all run Linux or BSD. All compilers you want (ASM, Basic, Pascal, Fortran, Ada, C, C++, Lisp, Prolog) as source code (!). Networking, Wordprocessing, Typesetting...
>> We have the capabilities to create infrastructure with very low capital
>> expenditures. Companies are creating satellite communications networks just
>> for the cost of monthly cable bills. Telecom companies around the world are
>> willing to put up satellites anywhere in the world with 20 Gigabit
>> transmission capabilities just for the guarenteed access to customer market
>> in the future.
>
>***************************************************************************
>If this is the case.... and given other valuable contributions of the
>list(s) members, I am re-evaluating my negative views towards the Internet
>in Africa. My major concerns were cost of connectivity, cost of required
>telecom infrastructure, consequent income redistributional effects and
>political abuse. I think the benefits can outweigh the negatives if we
>have a fair amount of distributed accessibility.
Plain telephone lines, or leased lines from the TeleCom.
You mentioned that one waits years for pones. That may be true. But if any government agency, or telcom themselves are involved it will take approximately 2 hours.
The more Internet you have the les you can abuse it. See China, they are restricting the use, because you can restrict contents, even if some Senators in the US think one can...
[...] >I agree that paper and pencil are appropriate tools for "rural" Africa.=20
>However, what can they do about the rate of 0.08 physicians / 1000 people
>in Sub Saharan Africa? Yes, 8 physicians for every 100,000 people !!!!
But how will traditional IT change that?
I am a rural physician in Africa. I have only dialup access to the gateway in the capital (but this will change within months).
But I received a notice from the CDC that their Morbdity and Mortality Weekly Report for this week has come out when I came for lunch and the following command:
uux -r 'grumpy!ncftp -r -d 600 -g 20 -c \ ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Publications/mmwr/wk/mm4512.pdf > !~/mm4512.pdf'
will allow me to read this week's edition with Adobe's Acrobat Reader tonight wehn I come back from my clinuc run.
>If we have 1 nurse / 10 villages, we can provide him/her with an
>Information system to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of suffering
>patients who might otherwise die before any of them sees a doctor.
That's crap, pure and simple.
>Here is an idea for using the Internet to solve such a problem: the nurse
>can consult an on-line "physician-on-duty" via the Internet, this
>physician could be in the other side of the Globe.
Come on, that doesn't even work in the US.
el
-- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Swakopmund State Hospital mailto:<el@lisse.NA> * | Resident Medical Officer Private Bag 5004 \ / +264 64 461503 (pager) 461005 (home) 461004 (fax) Swakopmund, Namibia ;____/ Zone/Domain Contact for the NA-DOM Vice-Chairman, Board of Trustees, Namibian Internet Development Foundation, an Association not for Gain. NAMIDEF is the Namibian Internet Service Provider.