FirstClass® is a deceivingly sophisticated product. Deceiving because it puts an immense amount of communication power into anyone's hands despite its easy to use intuitive graphic interface. And sophisticated because of its flexibility and open-endedness of interface design, intimacy of client/server relationship and underlying software architecture that makes FirstClass a superior communications tool.
FirstClass empowers companies and individual enthusiasts to run information servers of a sophistication that required mainframes and full-time white-coated lab technicians only a few years ago, but at a fraction of the price.
There are important technical factors that make FirstClass superior to other communication software:
FCP
FirstClass Protocol, or FCP, is SoftArc's proprietary protocol used for packet transmission between the FirstClass server and client. Rather than choose an existing network protocol, SoftArc anticipated the need for a reliable error-checking, sliding window protocol optimized for both network and modem connections. Because company developers had a background writing low-level network protocol code, the decision was made to spend months of development effort on the protocol itself before work on the FirstClass server or client were even considered.
The result? One of the industry's most high-performance, reliable, ISO-compliant (true seven-level layered design, i.e. "presentation layer", "physical layer" etc.) communication schemes ever.
FCP is of such high performance that one Macintosh-based FirstClass server may accommodate upwards of 100 simultaneous users logged in by modem or network. It is also the prime reason the FirstClass Client is as useable over modem as it is. Because FCP is fully bidirectional, simultaneous uploading and downloading in FirstClass over network and modem connections is possible and completely reliable... because it is a basic operation at protocol level.
The standardized, layered nature of FCP also allows for relatively straightforward and quick ports of client and server to other hardware platforms and protocol layers such as IPX or TCP/IP.
True Client-Server Architecture
Rather than offering the simple guise of a client-server architecture, FirstClass sets the standard for other client-server applications.
Again, the SoftArc development team's background writing client-server applications has uniquely qualified them to write into FirstClass their best work yet.
The FirstClass server application only boasts one status screen as its display, but it's one of the most durable, hardy servers in the industry. SoftArc maintains a server should be merely a "black box" on one's network, routing bytes and communicating via high-performance protocol with whatever client should connect to it, all through a full multitasking kernel. A server should treat all clients with the same priority. These factors influenced the design of the FirstClass server.
Other considerations included notions of acceptable downtime that the authors of FirstClass learned from working on phone switch equipment at Northern Telecom. As a result, the FirstClass server is many times more stable than other so-called industrial quality mail servers.
Figuring prominently into the success of the FirstClass server was the decision to support multiple network protocols at the server level. SoftArc believes a true server should understand whatever network protocol the client needs to speak, similar to Novell's approach, and not the other way around. This is why FirstClass supports the various protocols it does natively, and why others are just around the corner.
Because the FirstClass server is a "black box" and easily administered through the client application, many organizations runnning FirstClass lock their servers in closets and forget about them. Some even run them without a monitor!
The FirstClass client is the part of FirstClass that both users and administrators use to communicate with the server, and is the same software one uses to connect to a FirstClass server over the network or modem. It is freely distributable, so an organization purchasing a FirstClass system may make as many copies of the client as they like and distribute them to employees... or even customers who'd like to log into their mail system via modem.
The client translates the packets the server sends via FCP into the information these bytes represent on the users' screen. The client contains all of the graphics, icons and graphical elements that make up forms, so that the server only has to send the actual bytes of message summary data in a message summary window when a conference is first opened, for example. A testament to the pre-emptive multitasking nature of FCP is the ability to open any message as soon as it arrives in a given listing. Other mail systems make you wait—even when on the network—for your mailbox to fill up before you may open anything in it... which could take 30 seconds if you've a lot of mail!
While it may not appear so, the Command Line User Interface for FirstClass is an FCP client as well. The CLUI is an option that installs on a FirstClass server to enable logins via modem with VT100 compatible terminals. It communicates with the server via FCP and translates into a format readable by the VT100 user.
The graphical FirstClass client is available free of charge in a variety of languages and computer platforms. Users or administrators may download versions in a dozen different languages from SoftArc Online, SoftArc's support system.
