Christine-
 
>Are they
>anywhere close to being comparable to Mosaic for those of us with dial-in
>access?
 
I haven't reviewed either of the products you mention yet, but can give you
a bit more detail about Mosaic and its relationship to dial-in programs.
 
Mosaic depends upon a TCP/IP connection to the Internet.  TCP/IP is the
network protocal used by those with direct Internet connection--it is kind
of the language the computers speak to each other.  With most dial-in access
services you run a terminal session on a remote computer.  The terminal
session allows you to run programs on that remote computer (which has a
TCP/IP connection to other computers) and see the results in your terminal
window.  Unfortunately, most dial-in services provide only limited terminal
services--text only.
 
Direct (TCP/IP) connections allow you to run programs on your own computer
which link via the net to other programs running on other computers.  Your
computer is the client--it provides the interface--the other computer is the
server--it provides the data.  The network connection is the crucial link
between them.  Client software like Mosaic is optimized for each operating
system and provides a very nice interface, but it depends on that network
connection.
 
SLIP (serial line internet protocal) provides a way to use dial-in lines to
run TCP/IP network connections.  If the two programs you mention support
SLIP on the client (your computer), then you have the first step towards
using Mosaic.  The second step is findng a host system that provides a SLIP
dial-in port.  These are becoming more common, but are still hard to come by
and expensive (generally $20 to $100/month plus hourly connect charges plus
long distance).  SLIP servers can't use the local access networks other
services use (Sprintnet, Tymnet, etc.) because SLIP is slow and requires a
very high speed modem on both ends.
 
Soooo, the Windows interface tools may be very nice, but without that SLIP
connection they may simply provide prettier terminal windows.
 
The hype level is rising fast in this area.  I was excited when I saw that
Delphi was advertising access to the World Wide Web (the host Mosaic
connects with).  So I did a bit of poking around and found that WWW actually
has client software for text-based systems.  Compared to Mosaic it is very
ugly, but it works and it is the Web so I guess they can advertise it.
 
I would be interested to hear what else you learn about these products.
 
 
 
 
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