[net.unix] Looking for AT&T 'RTR' op.sys. info

dwight@timeb.UUCP (10/07/84)

	We're seriously considering the implementation of a 3B20-based
large system here. In our dealings with the AT&T sales people, they
refer to an operating system for the 3B boxes that they call "RTR".
We have never heard of it before, and, being sales people, they don't
seem to know too much about it. They claim it's bundled with the 3B
equipment, and that no separate licensing is necessary. They allude to
various 'real-time' capabilities of this operating system, claim it's
based on System V (which we're currently running on a pair of VAXen--
release two), and they sayd that it offers 'fault tolerance.' Having
some exposure to fault-tolerance operating systems (like Tandem's
Guardian), this is both attractive and repulsive--we certainly do need
some kind of fault tolerance in this application, but I'm afraid that
a Unix variant running in a fault-tolerant mode could get rather slow,
depending on the checkpointing algorithm involved.
	Is anyone running RTR? If so, can you tell me a little about it?
	Does anyone know how well it performs compared to standard
Unix System V Release 2? Is there any benchmarking information available?
	Does anyone know how much trouble it would be for us to port
a lot of code we've developed for System V to an RTR opsys?
	Does anyone know if RTR source licenses are available?
	Can anyone provide any confirmation--or lack thereof--for
the sales peoples' claims that RTR comes bundled with a 3B20 purchase?
	Thanks in advance! If I receive several replies, I'll post
a summary here.
		Regards--
			--Dwight Ernest, Edit Tech Group, Time Inc.
-- 
		--Dwight Ernest	KA2CNN	\ Usenet:...vax135!timeinc!dwight
		Time Inc. Editorial Technology Group, New York City
		Voice: (212) 554-5061 \ Compuserve: 70210,523 \ EIES: 1228
		Telemail: EDPISG/TIMEINC \ MCI: DERNEST

haral@ttidcb.UUCP (Haral Tsitsivas) (10/10/84)

[:-)]

>	Is anyone running RTR? If so, can you tell me a little about it?

No, we are not running RTR, you should probably look at the folks who
were involved with the Summer Olympics for details because they were
using an assortment of AT&T machines.  I have recently attended a sales
presentation by AT&T on their products and did not talk about RTR a lot
either.

>	Does anyone know how well it performs compared to standard
>Unix System V Release 2? Is there any benchmarking information available?

RTR is NOT System V, furthermore it is nothing like Release 2.  From what
I've heard AT&T is going to upgrade the RTR system fairly soon to be System
V compatible, however at the moment all the IPC and semaphore code (system
calls) are incompatible with SVR2.  Also, RTR will never be a virtual memory
system according to the presentation I received since that would slow it down
and presumably take it further from it real-time market.

>	Does anyone know how much trouble it would be for us to port
>a lot of code we've developed for System V to an RTR opsys?

If you are not using any of the above it should be fairly straight-forward,
I also seem to remember some incompatibilities with the termio package (or
lack of it?).

>	Does anyone know if RTR source licenses are available?

I was told not for now.

-- 
--Haral Tsitsivas
  TTI, Santa Monica, CA. 
  (213) 450-9111 X2251
  ...!{philabs | randvax | trwrb | vortex}!ttidca!haral

gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) (10/14/84)

UNIX/RTR is supplied with the 3B20D only; other 3Bs use UNIX System V
(the 3B20A is especially nice).  Although UNIX/RTR may be mostly
compatible, I would doubt that it is "based on" UNIX System V;
earlier 3B20Ds all ran DMERT.

The above information obtained from several random sources.
Corrections and additions would be appreciated.