WorkS-Request@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (Dave Steiner, The Moderator) (10/30/85)
WORKS Digest Tuesday, 29 Oct 1985 Volume 5 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: Queries - Programmer Productivity and Lisp Machines & National's ICM3216 & 68020 Clock Rate Query, Response to Queries - 68020 Clock Rate Query (2 msgs) & Berkeley Smalltalk on Sun 2/50, Hardware - CMU 3M Machine & Encoding Mouse Data, Call For Papers - Office Information Systems '86 (Revised) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: warren@ihwpt.UUCP (warren montgomery) Subject: Any data on programmer productivity and lisp machines? Date: 18 Oct 85 17:58:36 GMT I am looking for data on software development productivity while doing development on lisp machine versus doing equivalent development on a conventional time-shared system. The comparison I am looking at is something like comparing Franz lisp + the needed "generic" development tools (editors, shells, etc), on a Unix* system, versus the integrated environment presented by the Symbolics* workstation. I know that this has been a popular subject on the net in the past, but I haven't seen much authoritative data. Any sound data I can collect has the potential to influence purchase decisions throughout AT&T, so if you have the evidence, now is your chance to present it. I would be particularly interested in published material with hard numbers. *Unix is a Trademark of AT&T *Symbolics is a Trademark of Symbolics, inc. -- Warren Montgomery, ihesa!warren ------------------------------ From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) Subject: comments on, users of, ICM3216?? Date: 25 Oct 85 14:35:47 GMT I'm considering buying one of National's ICM3216 32016 processor and memory board sets and would appreciate any comments any can give me about them or the 32016 (in general) and unix ports for them. e.g. - early versions of the 32016 were reportedly buggy is this still true? - if you have the ICM3216, what do you think of it (design, construction, reliability) - National offers sys V - does anyone have comments as to the quality of the port? - National apparently also offers 4.xbsd under the guise of Genix 4.x does anyone have this up and running and is it a good port? Will National sell it to end users (it's not mentioned in the ICM3216 information packet)? - how does your 32016 system compare to say a 68010 system (about the same power, more, less?)? I would really appreciate any comments anyone has to offer, either here or by e-mailing me - I will post a summary if I get any interesting comments. Thanks a lot and in advance, john chapman jchapman@watcgl ------------------------------ From: wb@zeta.UUCP (Bill Beblo) Subject: 68020 clock rate query Date: 19 Oct 85 05:18:41 GMT I am currently in the process of looking rather closely at some of the "workstations" being offered by companies such as Sun, Apollo, Masscomp, Integrated Solutions, etc. Most of these vendors offer a system based on the 68020 chip. Some of the vendors claim their 68020 is clocked at 16.67MHz while others claim 12MHz. Although I realize that a faster clock rate in itself does not guarantee better throughput, an interesting dispute has developed regarding two of these vendors. Vendor A (16.67MHz clock) claims they have made special arrangements with Motorola and are paying a premium for 68020 chips certified by Motorola at 16.67MHz. Vendor B (12MHz clock) claims that Motorola is not currently certifying the 68020 at 16.67MHz and that Vendor A is in reality getting 12MHz chips from Motorola, but using only those chips which they can successfully push to run at 16.67MHz. I tend to believe that since the clock rate of 16.67MHz is printed on Vendor A's glossy brochure they are telling the truth, but Vendor B's claim does not seem absurd. I'm not an Electrical Engineer so I'm turning to the net for answers/opinions. A reply from a qualified party at Motorola would also be appreciated. Bill Beblo Bell Communications Research 290 W. Mt. Pleasant Ave. Rm 1B-112 Livingston, New Jersey 07039 (201) 740-4421 ------------------------------ From: pavlov@hscfvax.UUCP (840033@G.Pavlov) Subject: Re: 68020 clock rate query Date: 21 Oct 85 08:32:31 GMT Hewlett_Packard has released a workstation (HP9000 series 300)that utilizes a 16.67 68020 chip. Since HP is very conservative re hardware, I think that the question about "official" vs "unofficial" releases of the chip are moot. g.pavlov, FSTRF, Amherst N.Y. ------------------------------ From: chip@cadsys.UUCP (Chip Krauskopf) Subject: Re: 68020 clock rate query Date: 22 Oct 85 20:30:09 GMT The testing of microprocessors is a very interesting subject. To be certified at a given speed the chip must perform at a given frequency and meet all the stated specs. across a wide temperature range. It is one thing for the part to work at room temp, but high temp is another. I would find it very surprising for a chip company to sell parts that don't pass there full test set at some speed as if they did. Likewise, if they have 16MHz parts, I would think they would sell them as such! The only way I know to "push" a non-full spec. chip is to cool it and/or run at higher voltage. -- Chip Krauskopf; 386 Design Team, Intel, Santa Clara, Ca. {pur-ee,hplabs,amd,scquaxd,dual,qantel}!intelca!cadsys!chip N.B. The views above are personal and may not represent those of Intel. ------------------------------ From: de@dcl-cs.UUCP (Dave England) Subject: Re: Problem with Berkeley Smalltalk on SUN 2/50 Date: 24 Oct 85 10:03:03 GMT Thanks for the replies to my article. It appears our problem is the lack of bs.tool on our distribution tape. We'll enquire at Berkeley to get hold of it. "Once again the net triumphs over the evil of ignorance" -- UUCP : ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!de ARPA : de%lancs.comp@ucl-cs JANET : de@uk.ac.lancs.comp PHONE : +44 524 65201 Ext. 4586 POST : Univ. of Lancaster, Dept of Computing, Lancaster LA1 2YR, UK. PROJECT: Alvey ECLIPSE User Interface ------------------------------ From: jg@mit-eddie.UUCP (Jim Gettys) Subject: Re: info on CMU 3M Machine (really X window system) Date: 16 Oct 85 02:54:57 GMT In article <208@ius2.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA> ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Ralph Hyre) writes: >MIT's project Athena is using mostly DEC hardware, (MicroVaxes, >750's with VS-1000 graphics terminals). They're supporting the CMU >window manager calls as well as their own. (This will be a big win, >especially if the compatibility is extended to other components of >the systems. Unfortunately MIT's idea is to provide remote services >through a remote procedure call (rpc) interface, while CMU is using >sockets. Both systems use Berkeley 4.2 Unix.) > To correct some missimpressions left by Ralph's Article: 1) Our window system (X) uses a protocol ON TOP of a stream, similar in principle to Andrew, the ITC CMU window system. It currently runs over TCP, though we ran it over a DECNET stream one day for interest's sake. We support a fully heirarchical (sub)window system, and allow overlapping windows. X is considerably more powerful than Andrew, but we have not the applications code that Andrew does. 2) X currently runs on VS100 displays, the VS 2 (uVaxII with QVSS) workstation and a color display. Other ports are in progress. The client programs (since X is a formal network server) have been ported to a Sun and will talk to a Vax display, but the X server has not been ported to the Sun (where most of the work lies; we do not have the manpower to put into it here). (Any suckers, ah, I meant volunteers out there?) 3) The Andrew emulation package is not finished, and I for one will not count my emulators before programs run under them. No promises as to if/when it will be done. We hope "soon".... 4) the Vs100 implementation of X is available from MIT at nominal ($100) charge, no license (additional to a Berkeley licence) is required, and X will be on the 4.3 tape. An incomplete VS2 implementation is also on the MIT distribution (soon to be finished as soon as the "last bug" is found). For information on how to get a distribution, send mail to "xrequest@athena.mit.edu" (xrequest@mit-athena.arpa). Jim Gettys MIT/Project Athena Digital Equipment Corporation jg@athena.mit.edu (jg@mit-athena.arpa). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Oct 85 05:52:33 EDT From: jqj@CU-ARPA.CS.CORNELL.EDU (J.Q. Johnson) To: INFO-TERMS@mit-mc.arpa, net-micro-pc@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU Subject: information on serialized mouse data wanted Cc: INFO-BITGRAPH@mit-mc.arpa When using a workstation with a mouse to emulate a terminal, one problem is how to send mouse-position data inband to the host. This is important, for example, if you want to use the mouse with a host-based editor like Emacs that is designed for use with traditional character-oriented crt terminals. My question: has any standard arisen for encoding such mouse data? One possibility, of course, is to transmit a cursor-position sequence (if the emulation is ANSI standard, that's ESC [ <line> ; <row> R ), but one frequently wants to have the mouse cursor be independent of the display cursor, so this is a bad choice. A variation on this theme is to send a sequence of relative motion command, as if the user had pressed arrow keys. Another (even uglier) possibility is to second-guess why the host application program wants to know the mouse cursor; for example, in Interlisp-D a click of the mouse sends a sequence of Emacs commands (^A, ^P, ^N, ^F, etc.) to move the typein point to match the mouse position. Another possibility, which I prefer, is that used on the BBN Bitgraph -- to send a special command sequence to report on mouse position and status (e.g. buttons). For BBN, that sequence is ESC : 2 ; <x> ; <y> ; <flags> c where x and y are window- or screen-relative pixel coordinates, and flags encodes such things as which mouse button was pressed, or whether x and y represent deltas from the previous mouse position. The Bitgraph may be programmed to send status reports at timed intervals (to allow host tracking), on button events, on motion, etc. I would like to see some standard including these features and others (e.g. status reports when the mouse enters a host-settable hotzone or crosses a boundary such as a window edge, position reporting in either pixel or character units, and perhaps support for multiple or 3d pointing devices). Ideally, this would become an extension to X3.64. Is such a standard unreasonable? Are there any de facto standards now? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Oct 85 11:33 EST From: Hewitt@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: REVISED call for papers: OIS-86 ******************* C A L L F O R P A P E R S * * ---------------------------------------------- * * Third ACM Conference On * * OFFICE INFORMATION SYSTEMS * OIS-86 * * * October 6-8, 1986 * * Biltmore Plaza Hotel * * Providence, RI ******************* ------------------------------------------------ General Chair: Carl Hewitt, Topics appropriate for this MIT conference include (but are not restricted to) the following as Program Chair: Stanley Zdonik, they relate to OIS: Brown University Technologies including Display, Treasurer: Gerald Barber, Voice, Telecommunications, Gold Hill Computers Print, etc. Local Arrangements: Andrea Skarra, Human Interfaces Brown University Deployment and Evaluation An interdisciplinary conference on issues relating to office System Design and Construction information systems (OIS) sponsored by ACM/SIGOA in cooperation with Goals and Values Brown University and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Distributed Services and Submissions from the following Applications fields are solicited: Knowledge Bases and Reasoning Anthropology Artificial Intelligence Distributed Services and Cognitive Science Applications Computer Science Economics Indicators and Models Management Science Psychology Needs and Organizational Sociology Factors Impact of Computer Integrated Manufacturing The following have confirmed their membership on the program committee: Guiseppe Attardi Ray Panko University of Pisa University of Hawaii James Bair Robert Rosin Hewlett Packard Syntrex Gerald Barber Erik Sandewall Gold Hill Computers Linkoping University Peter de Jong Walt Scacci MIT USC Irene Greif Andrea Skarra MIT Brown University Sidney Harris Susan Leigh Star Georgia State University Tremont Research Institute Carl Hewitt Luc Steels MIT University of Brussels Heinz Klein Sigfried Treu SUNY University of Pittsburgh Fred Lochovsky Dionysis Tsichritzis University of Toronto University of Geneva Fanya Montalvo Eleanor Wynn MIT Brandon Interscience Naja Naffah Aki Yonezawa Bull Transac Tokyo Institute of Technology Margrethe Olson Stanley Zdonik NYU Brown University The invited keynote speaker is Professor J.C.R. Licklider of MIT. Unpublished papers of up to 5000 words (20 double-spaced pages) are sought. The first page of each paper must include the following information: title, the author's name, affiliations, complete mailing address, telephone number and electronic mail address where applicable, a maximum 150-word abstract of the paper, and up to five keywords (important for the correct classification of the paper). If there are multiple authors, please indicate who will present the paper at OIS-86 if the paper is accepted. Proceeedings will be distributed at the conference and will later be available from ACM. Selected papers will be published in the ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems. Please send eight (8) copies of the paper to: Prof. Stan Zdonick OIS-86 Program Chair Computer Science Department Brown University P.O. Box 1910 Providence, RI 02912 DIRECT INQUIRIES TO: Margaret H. Franchi (401) 863-1839. --------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES Deadline for Paper Submission: February 1, 1986 Notification of Acceptance: April 30, 1986 Deadline for Final Camera-Ready Copy: July 1, 1986 Conference Dates: October 6-8, 1986 ------------------------------ End of WORKS Digest *******************