The Dialafile package was designed to allow a central computer system to poll a number of remote computers overnight. All that is needed at each site is a copy of Dialafile, a phone line and a Hayes compatible modem.

Dialafile computers need not have a master-slave configuration. It is just as easy for remote computers to dial the central site as it is to allow the central site to do the polling.

Dialafile software runs on multi-vendor computers such as Hewlett Packard, Dec, Prime and IBM compatible PCs. If, for instance, the central computer has a copy of the Dialafile software installed it can poll round any number of remote sites where either a PC or a mini-computer running Dialafile is situated. It is this polling feature of Dialafile that opens it up to many applications. The central computer doing the polling can either be a PC or a mini-computer such as Dec, Vax or Hewlett Packard 3000. The polling can take place at any time within a 24 hour timeframe, therefore it is possible to take advantage of cheap telephone tariffs. Dialafile can be fully automated and programmatic needing no operator intervention and allowing any type of file to be transferred including ASCII and binary.

Dialafile was specifically written for the ordinary telephone system and so can cope with dropped or noisy lines - it has a retry pattern that at present allows up to five retries. The information is transferred in such a way as to make full use of the telephone line and achieve maximum efficiency. The software has full error checking written in to it and so does not need expensive modems that have inbuilt error checking.

It is possible to obtain data compression facilities from Intech that can achieve excellent results on some types of files, especially ASCII. Please contact us if you require more information.