eric@plus5.UUCP (Eric W. Kiebler) (05/13/85)
I have had a chance to play with the 7300 and plan to get one. Here is what I have learned (or think I know...) * Don't expect anything good from ATT sales people for about 6 months. AT&T is trying very hard to improve their sales and sales support organizations, but it takes time. Many of the people that have been out selling UNIX are retreaded voice salesfolk, and they just don't have the data area under their belt yet. This is not an excuse, it is a reason. (I don't work for ATT and have no vested interests.) * Don't buy a 7300 with less than a MB, period. * It is possible to get expansion units from third party people that are quite reasonable. There is at least one vendor that has a 40MB drive in a 7300 and plans are in the works for interfacing the brand-new optical disks. * The interface specs are semi-secret and appear to be going only to certified VARS, and even then only when pressure is applied. * The machine is not fast and not slow. The graphics are not stellar, but they work. It really does run UNIX SVR2 and it does have virtual memory that appears to work. This is a *BIG* plus over the other machines I have looked at. The next closest thing is the U! and the ISI/NBI S!, and they are much more expensive. * The C-compiler that is currently being delivered DOES NOT support flexnames. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM, AT&T!!! The machine is virtual -- any reason we can't have a few extra chars on our variable names? The LPI compiler also seems to be a compiler of few characters. I didn't have enough time to see if the problem was with the compiler or just the linker, but nm seemed to think that vars were teeny-weeny. * I did not see a uucp out there. * Nobody is quite sure which programs are really packaged with the various unix segments they offer. Especially nebulous is the Electronic Mail system. I assume that this is some neat mailer as opposed to mailx or /bin/mail or cat. THE BOTTOM LINE It has a 68K instead of a braindamaged 80286, the price is about the same as an AT, and it runs real UNIX, and it performs well enough for most UNIX applications IN COMPARISON TO THE COMPETITION. If I had $18K for a MicroVaxII then there would be no contest (they want $26K for a VaxStation II which is about the same machine, looking from the outside, as a safari). Most importantly, it has the name ATT on it, and people are almost as willing to buy from them as they are IBM. eric -- ..!ihnp4!wucs!plus5!eric ..!ihnp4!plus5!eric (314) 725-9492
dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest) (05/14/85)
In article <739@plus5.UUCP> eric@plus5.UUCP (Eric W. Kiebler) writes: >I have had a chance to play with the 7300 and plan to get one. > >* It is possible to get expansion units from third party people that > are quite reasonable. There is at least one vendor that has a 40MB > drive in a 7300 and plans are in the works for interfacing the > brand-new optical disks. Names? Do you have vendor names? <pant, pant> >* The interface specs are semi-secret and appear to be going only to > certified VARS, and even then only when pressure is applied. Fooey. >* I did not see a uucp out there. I did, at a demo about a month ago. Full-featured, but not honeydanber. > It has a 68K instead of a braindamaged 80286 Yeah, but why not a 32100? <grin> -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --Dwight Ernest KA2CNN \ Usenet:...vax135!timeinc!dwight Time Inc. Edit./Prod. Tech. Grp., New York City Voice: (212) 554-5061 \ Compuserve: 70210,523 Telemail: DERNEST/TIMECOMDIV/TIMEINC \ MCI: DERNEST "The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Time Incorporated." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
schimpf@utah-cs.UUCP (James Schimpf) (05/15/85)
Keywords:7300,Safari IV [ Bug Food ] I am writing this on a 7300 ( 1Meg RAM & 10 Meg disk ) and have found it quite fun once you get into the spirit of the game. I amd interested in it because it seems to be one of the cheapest window based systems around upon which you can have a "real" UNIX. I am using the VT100 emulation program which seems to run VI fine but it is like typing into TELENET on a bad day. We are running 1200 baud but on long text pages it comes out in bursts at nowhere near 1200 baud. So far it's fun be we haven't figured out how to do a C compile but we are working on it. Also in answer to a question it does have UUCP and the fancy electronic mail is front end for mail. --jim schimpf
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (05/15/85)
The 7300 we had for a while was missing a C compiler and similar stuff
(!@#$%$#@!!!), but there WAS a file named uucp. Didn't look at it too
carefully, though...
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgaryeric@plus5.UUCP (Eric W. Kiebler) (05/20/85)
When I said "I didn't see a copy of uucp" I meant just that -- I didn't really look for it very hard, either. Someone sent me mail that said that uucp is included in the Electronic Mail Package. This may be true, but it is also included in the Basic Unix (???) package (or utilities -- I forgot what the guy I asked really said -- can someone out there tell us for sure?) eric PS. Is NBI dropping the price of the U! yet? -- ..!ihnp4!wucs!plus5!eric ..!ihnp4!plus5!eric (314) 725-9492
wan@gatech.CSNET (Peter N. Wan) (05/20/85)
In article <739@plus5.UUCP> eric@plus5.UUCP (Eric W. Kiebler) writes: >* Don't buy a 7300 with less than a MB, period. Definitely true. The complaints about the window responses have probably come from people who used a 0.5MB system. My 1MB system responded very well. The newer systems (my system was an early development system) can have 1MB on the motherboard, thereby requiring only two expansion slots be taken up for memory expansion. There is talk that they will use 256KB memory chips and allow all 2MB to be on the motherboard. >* It is possible to get expansion units from third party people that > are quite reasonable. There is at least one vendor that has a 40MB > drive in a 7300 and plans are in the works for interfacing the > brand-new optical disks. The only one that I am familiar with is the 40MB disk from Bell Technologies (not affiliated with AT&T). List price is $2995 for this disk. It is supposed to just plug into the slot and use the same controller connector as the standard 10MB/20MB drives offered by AT&T IS. Formatted capacity is 31.46MB, track-to-track access is 16ms, and average access time is 85ms (maximum of 205ms). These figures are quoted from their literature. I don't know about optical disk interfacing. >* I did not see a uucp out there. My machine had UUCP, and it talked to my VAX running 4.2bsd just fine. It wasn't Honey/Danber, though. The menu-driven L.sys entry creator was not too flexible (it didn't handle wierd network switches! :-) ). >* Nobody is quite sure which programs are really packaged with the various > unix segments they offer. Especially nebulous is the Electronic Mail > system. I assume that this is some neat mailer as opposed to mailx > or /bin/mail or cat. I believe that the electronic mail system is menu-oriented, and interfaces with the telephone manager (there is a field in the telephone manager to record the electronic mail address for an entry, and a command entry to send electronic mail to the selected directory entry). I don't know for sure, since we didn't order that option. >eric >-- >..!ihnp4!plus5!eric -- Peter N Wan UUCP : ...!{akgua,allegra,ihnp4,rlgvax,ut-ngp,ut-sally}!gatech!wan ARPA : Wan%GaTech.CSNet@CSNet-Relay.Arpa CSNET : Wan@GaTech
eric@plus5.UUCP (Eric W. Kiebler) (05/26/85)
Thanks for the updates, Peter. A friend in town just got one and much of the SBS(*) is moot. The expansions I spoke of are in the wings, at least here in St. Louis. They are all third party people with scopes and logic analyzers and *lots* of spare time. At least one vendor in town will sell a 7300 with the 10 ripped out and a 20MB installed, and will soon sell a 7300 with the 10MB ripped out and a 40MB installed. He has mumbled something about trying to get the new (Phillips?) optical disk interfaced. This could all be SBS(*) of course, but I have seen at least one 7300 with the non-att 20MB (seems easy enough) and expect to see the 40MB Real Soon Now. Has anyone heard anything about a compiler for the machine that allows unique, long identifier names ala VAX et al? Since much of the code that comes across the net is UCBian, and since I have tried to port some code where people used RatherLongButQuiteUnderstandableIdentifiers, and loathed it, my decision concerning the machine is based upon the availablility of such a compiler. I have heard people say "its on the way", but they said that about bug fixes and general software and support about my old NEC-APC; that turd got flushed long after it should have. In the competition dept, I have heard lousy things about the U! in general. Anyone have any good comments? Anyone think that the 7300 has any real competition? Morrow, maybe? On a cost per user basis, the MicroVax-II is starting to look really good, though you don't get all the nice integrated graphics per user. Has anyone gone through this whole decision-making process and come up with some conclusions they would be willing to post or mail? eric "Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein "... except when buying a computer." -- eric -- ..!ihnp4!wucs!plus5!eric ..!ihnp4!plus5!eric (314) 725-9492