paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (06/25/86)
In article <1322@brl-smoke.ARPA> lacasse@rand-unix.arpa writes: > >RE: > We got a flier from an outfit in San Jose, CA called Symmetrics that > sells 4.2 Unix machines using National Semi's 32000 series chips for $5k > to $10k. My question is, does anyone has seen the little machines? Are > they for real? We are thinking of a getting a few sight unseen which is > not very wise and I was hoping some out there could help us. > >I saw one at a Usenix meeting. It seemed to work, but I didn't really >test it. It was very small, and had good specs for the money. As I recall, >it had 4M Ram, 50M Disk, FULL 4.2 (no subsetting!), an ethernet port, >a 1M floppy, a connector for scci drives/tapes, a connector for more >floppies, and an ethernet connection. At the time they wanted $9K if paid >up front, and $10K with P.O. > >If you buy some, please let us know how you like them. Well, *I* bought one, and this message intends to let you know how I like it. Disclaimer: except for buying the machine, I have no connection (financial, personal, or otherwise) to Symmetric Computer Systems. I do expect to benefit from people buying machines, since a large installed base usually means cheaper and more plentiful software. I'll not bias this "review" from that or any other motive, however -- but you'll have to take my word on it. Then again, what else would you do? The Box: about 20 lbs, H 7" x W 14" x D 12" has scope-type handle for carrying 32016 (32-bit internal, 16-bit external bus) 32 or 64-bit floating point; 200000+ flops virtual memory; up to 16Mb per process 2 megabytes, 10 megahertz, no wait states 4 serial ports, up to 19200 or 38400 (but not both in the same kernal. odd.) 1 parallel port (comes with centronics-type cable) 1 floppy drive (mine's a teac) at 800K formatted 1 hard drive (mine's a 86Mb fuji; 50Mb rodime is std) 1 floppy port (you could add three more drives here) 1 hard drive port (any ST506-type will do; there is a connector inside for a third drive but they didn't bring it out to the rear panel) The OS: Berkeley 4.2, sort of. Actually Genix 4.1 (from BSD 4.1) enhanced 'til it works like BSD 4.2 with a few 4.3 goodies. it compiled 2.10.3, 4.3 rn, microemacs, kermit, and some MSDOS crudgle, all with "BSD 4.2" enabled in the respective makefiles. i didn't have to modify any of it. [as it happened, I *did* modify kermit, but it turned out to be unneccessary] Languages: a gold mine. cc, pc, asm, franz lisp, prolog, apl, basic, something called CRL and/or Pearl, f77. Ethernet: my box is the "OEM"-type, which means: it costs $4K less it comes without official BSD documentation (owner's manual and online man pages only) it has no ethernet hardware (software's here though) Mass Storage: the standard box comes with a 50Mb/40ms rodime drive. this drive is quieter than mine, but for an extra $1200 i got a 86Mb/25ms fujitsu drive. i pile pillows atop the machine when i go to sleep -- otherwise the drive noise is very evil. NOTE: the 50Mb drive is "virtually noiseless" compared to mine. The Company: SCS is very small -- but the people are Extremely Competent. The man who designed the machine and ported the OS worked for NS while the original 32k/genix/cc design/porting was going on - so he knew what he wanted from this little box. He had time to demo my machine for me when I picked it up, and he Really Knows His Stuff. Repairs: alas, my machine was imperfect: the battery-backed-up-clock was running wild when the machine was powered off; it gained a week every eight hours. not critical: I just set it every time I booted until SCS made time to repair it (about two days, really). When I brought it in, they fixed it without any major effort [under warrantee, obviously]. Speed: ugh. cc grinds, a lot. compiling kermit in parallel on this machine and a vaxstation-2 was astounding: the uvax II beat my 375 by a factor of three. otherwise, it's just like being on an unloaded 750 (which aint much these days, 'til you look at the size and cost of the machine in question). Genix: is evil. I'm glad I didn't buy any of the other 32016/Genix boxes around. This OS has a slightly nonstandard a.out file format, which means: GNU Emacs' cutesy tricks won't work; sendmail.fc isn't in the format expected by sendmail (this has a workaround: did you know that sendmail will compile sendmail.cf each time it runs if sendmail.fc is zero-length?); cdb doesn't work; lisp's "import .o file" doesn't work. BSD 4.2: is coming. In July. At which point the a.out nastiness will disappear; the compilers will go faster (something called the Berkeley Language Suite or some such -- never having been a 4.1 user, I didn't realize how fast the 4.2 compilers were in comparison). I would have regarded the July promise as "Real Soon Now" except that I've met the man who's doing the work, and I believe him. Summary: if I didn't have a new OS coming in a month or so, I'd be very unhappy with this machine -- it's usable but not astounding in its performance or OS completeness (i.e., I don't have the .o files to build my kernal, or the .c files for UUCP dialing...) However, the machine runs, runs well, runs reliably, and some- time in July will run much faster. I can carry it off to work, UUCP or Kermit source onto it at 19200, bring it home and play all night. For now I'll say "recommended". When I get the real live OS, I'll probably be saying "highly recommended". Prices: are confusing, but let's try: With Ethernet: $9450, $8495 prepaid (quantity discounts) Without: $5550, $4995 prepaid (no quantity discounts) 86Mb drive: add $1200 140Mb drive: add $3450 8Mb RAM: add $2800 SCSI port: add $600 Source code: add $2000 (educational institution price) Symmetric: After all that, prices and all, I have no rules left to break (if I am) by including their address. I stress again, however, that I have no connection to Symmetric other than as a satis- fied customer. Their address is: Symmetric Computer Systems 1620 Oakland Road, Suite D200 San Jose, CA 95131 (408) 279-0700 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Vixie {hplabs,dual}!qantel!vixie!paul ^^|^^ +----- my S375
bblue@crash.UUCP (Bill Blue) (07/02/86)
I also have an s/375 and have some additional comments to Paul's.
Let me preface this by saying that in general, I am pleased with the
machine. Like Paul, I feel there could be a number of improvements,
many of which are 'promised'.
Mine's the version without ethernet, but with 2mb ram and an 86mb Toshiba
drive internal.
As I said above, I like the machine, but I am not very pleased with
the company. Yes, I know they are small and are trying hard. But
internal company problems and changes should not project negatively
toward the customer. When I received the machine there were a lot of
problems. The filesystem had been installed incorrectly, among other
things. It took me over a week of reporting bizarre problems (which of
course, had to be something I'm doing wrong) for them to come to the
conclusion that it may be *their* fault. Machine had to go back. About
a week later I got it back and most all of the problems had been taken
care of. Fine, but what about those remaining? I found out that many
of them were already known and would be taken care of in the final
software release in July. Ok, I'll go with that (not that there was any
choice). I was also informed that I was taking up far too much of their
time, and that they had spent too much time on my problems already! Oh,
REALLY? MY problems? Indeed. What about all of MY TIME that was wasted
on THEIR PROBLEMS? This is a preposterous attitude, which hopefully, is
not representative of the entire company, but rather one or two
individuals.
I originally ordered my machine in late April (I got lots of attention
until after the order was shipped, by the way). But I was also promised
the full Unix manual set, itemized in the user agreement that I was
required to sign, as an item that I would receive in two to three
weeks. After more than a month, I called to find out where the manuals
were. Interesting. Between the time I received my machine and the time
I called, there had been a policy change and manuals were no longer
being provided with the non-ethernet version. That's fine, but why
should that affect MY order? I was told by several people prior to
giving the order that manuals were included, and my documentation so
states. Now they're saying that if I want the manuals, it'll cost me
another $150! Unethical? You bet.
Other observations/extensions to Paul's thorough comments on the machine:
Compiler: Painfully slow. Actually, it's the loader that's the prime
culprit, the compiler/assembler seem reasonable, but probably will be
better in next release. The loader *has* to be.
Clock: Software timekeeping loses two minutes per day. Backup clock
loses about two minutes per week (on mine). Software timekeeping is so
slow that I had to put a hardware to software update (date `rtc`) in
crontab so the system would be reasonably close.
Speed: Not bad, overall. Pretty peppy at times. But incoming data via
uucp just kills it, especially at 2400bps. They say it should hardly
matter much, but it does - a lot. In fact, the loader times more than
double during incoming uucp data at 1200bps. I don't think that's the
way it should be but of course, it must be something *I'm* doing wrong.
System upgrade in July: Really looking forward to that, EXCEPT that the
machine MUST be sent to them for it. It involves a complete reformat
and reinstall, from the ground up. That means that the multitudes of
hours that may be invested in your current operations (all the fine
tuning, support files, config files, news files, user accounts and
directories, etc etc) are going to have to be completely rebuilt,
selectively, from backups. That's a major pain - not to mention time
offline if your unit happens to be in a 'responsible' position to other
sites, which mine is. I *wish* there was another way.
The BSD being supplied in July is supposed to have Chris Torek's
dial-in/dial-out mods to the kernel so you don't have to dedicate
certain ports to dial-in operation only, and others to dial-out
operation only. That will be a real plus. In fact, one of my decisions
to buy this unit was based on that mod being available. Also support
for reading/writing MSDOS format disks may make it too.
Noise: My system is very quiet and runs very cool. The drive is
a little noisy when it seeks, but it's not objectionable to me.
Practically no fan noise.
I think the overall hardware box is pretty well thought out and
engineered, and as Paul observed, obviously done by competant people.
Unfortunately, they definitely lack finesse when it comes to business
practices. It's this deficiency that has bitten a number of well
intending small companies. Many of which are no longer with us.
A semi-pleased-but-somewhat-disappointed customer,
--Bill Blue {ihnp4, akgua, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bblue