usenet@cuae2.UUCP (12/22/86)
Here are a couple of answers to the Fortune system question. Please remember to send answers to the orignator (From: field) rather than to me (Path: field). Ron. ---------- Date: Thu, 18 Dec 86 16:23:50 EDT From: ihnp4!umich!cosivax!foghorn!rec (Rick Cobb) > > I have to evaluate a proposal which includes one of these. Do you have one? > Have you used it in an accounting-type environment? Or know of someone who > has? We have two. We worked on a contract with Fortune to provide a remote software distribution and system management facility for the large uucp network they run at Ford. We have not used it in an accounting-type environment, but rather in software development and database environment. The remote software management system includes a lot of inventory management functions. > FOR:PRO is (they say) a Ver 7 / Sys III hybrid, so right away I have my > doubts. And though the machine runs a 68010, I can't seem to get any > answers about how they do memory management. You are absolutely right to ``have doubts.'' We have ``reservations.'' This is the wierdest hybrid we've ever worked with. It includes: * System V release 2 make * Old old old termcap/curses * more/csh (no job control, of course)/ berkeley ls * berkeley ranlib stuff * System V shared memory routines * But no sockets, FIFOs, semaphores, or message queues In all, it's a complete hodgepodge of functions; we had to look up *everything*. As far as memory management, they were one of the first out the door with a 68010 based box, and thus everything is done very simply, very slowly. They used a fixed-size partition to hold each process. The size of the partition is changed by recompiling the kernel. We currently run it with 480K processes, which, given the base 1M memory configuration, runs, shall we say, snail-like? Or is that a compliment? We don't have a lot of numbers to tell you about. We have lots of subjective feeling based on our experience with ISI 68010 and 68020-based boxes in house, and lots of other good-to-awful 68000-based boxes. My closest approximation to one of these things is ``what you would get if old Xenix came on 68000's,'' or ``man, I didn't think any Unix super-micro that didn't come from AT&T could be this slow'' Don't don't don't don't don't even think of using their terminals for more than a few days. I usually don't object too much to weird layouts, but they have all the Unix keys like vertical bar, backslash, backprime, tilde, and the curly braces on a three key pad about two inches to the left of the normal keyboard. Unfortunately, lots of their nifty system administration and menu stuff assumes you use these awful keyboards, and want nifty little things like execute and cancel keys to work. ON THE OTHER HAND: They have spent a lot of time on hiding Unix from the normal user. The system is bundled with Schmidt Menu, and all system adminstration is done through the menu system. Fortune:Word isn't quite as good a WYSIWYG word processor as CrystalWriter, but it's OK. They have support for the HP Laserprinter. A pretty fair amount of Unix vendors support the box. One important one that does NOT is Oracle; however, last I heard, Informix did support their database products on the box. That funny keyboard does enable them to provide a lot of the things that are comforting to old Wang and IBM users-- like send keys, cancel keys, etc. They also have a uniform Help Key convention. DEEP WIERDNESS: Other oddities just keep on coming. We're used to 68000's running with 32-bit ints; they run with 16-bit ints (just a matter of taste, I know, but remember that pointers don't fit in ints-- not that you'd do anything like that). Bundling of system utilities is bizarre-- sed is part of the ``Unix base'' bundle, but awk is part of the ``Programmer's utilities'' package. They changed a lot of system utilities to make them more fun: the ``cp'' man page lists over 30 options, including block read and write, recursive copy (useful), different formats.... Ford, for whatever reason, *hates* the uucp that comes with the Fortune and immediately replaces it with System V release [12] uucp. I don't know why. We had very little trouble with the standard one. Software installations are kind of similar to the 3B2 arrangement, but: [1] Instead of having INSTALL, BACKUP, UNINSTALL, etc., scripts for each piece of software, there is one script ``<product>.maint'' which has clauses for each of "backup", "install", "delete", and "refresh"; refresh causes the software to be put on the menu system. [2] Instead of using /etc/rc.d to hold up and down scripts, all software maintenance activities are done under `/m'. Up and down scripts are in /m/rc, those maintenance scripts are in /m/maint, and most software actually lives in /m/<software> or /m/bin. Other name changes include /u for /usr and /f as the directory you usually mount the floppy on. Yes, floppies are mountable; they use 96tpi 5 1/2" diskettes. SUMMARY If you want a small 68K family box that runs something reasonable and can handle more than two users, DON'T BUY THIS BOX. If you want some reasonable word processing software (I don't know about their accounting packages) and run with two users or less, this might be a decent arrangement-- but shop around. I don't know the price ranges on these things; as I said, we were on contract with Fortune and these are their boxes. So I don't know what to compare them to directly. But in terms of bang-for-buck data entry, database-oriented work, I'd much prefer a Tower 32. Heck, I'd much prefer a 3B2/300! It might not be faster, but I'd know what the heck it would do when I used a system call or utility. ---------- Date: 19 Dec 86 09:47:19 CST (Fri) From: codas!akgua!sb6!sjt We have several hundred Fortunes (800) among which are several SX motherboards. They run 68000 at 10mhz not a 68010. The sales hype is confusing here. For Pro has been enhanced several times and is a great deal beyond its original SYS 3/4.1 beginnings. As a low end 3 to 6 user system the SX will do quite well since it will support 2 mbytes of ram and up to 70 meg disk. The word processor is great and it supports Multi-plan and several data base managers. The buisiness software is short on the side of latest and greatest since it has been around forever. If you would like to see some of these beast in operation I am sure we could arrange it. Give me a call at (404) 529-2895. I will be out until after new years so it may be difficult in the next few days. If you just have general questions call at 922-3097. Sidney Thompson Bell South Services ---------- Date: Wed, 17 Dec 86 09:55:28 PST From: hplabs!decwrl!sun!clt (Charlie Tierney - Sun Consulting Services) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View I used to work at Fortune. And, well, the Fortune UNIX is probably the most solid UNIX around. It is not unusual for a Fortune machine to run at very high load factors (I've seen 30+) without crashing. Extremely reliable. Go For It. Charlie Tierney ---------- (End)