dave@micropen (David F. Carlson) (10/18/89)
Reading an month old press release from IBM is the following on their visionary product for the office worker of tomorrow: OfficeVision/2. Running under OS/2 Extended Edition v1.2 this little gem does mail, address book, rolodex, word processing, and "talks to mainframes". A simple requestor [client] station REQUIRES a MINIMUM of *7* MEGABYTES of RAM! Disk requirements are not stated. A central server workstation requires a mere *10* megabytes of RAM. Cost is $750 (plus IBM list price of $3495 for 4 meg card) Buy two, they're cheap! :-) "I have met the enemy and the enemy is OS/2" -- (apologies to Walt Kelly) (How was that that UNIX is piggy on memory?) -- David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc. micropen!dave@ee.rochester.edu "The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll
silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andy Silverman) (10/18/89)
In article <900@micropen> dave@micropen (David F. Carlson) writes: > >Reading an month old press release from IBM is the following on their >visionary product for the office worker of tomorrow: OfficeVision/2. > >Running under OS/2 Extended Edition v1.2 this little gem does mail, >address book, rolodex, word processing, and "talks to mainframes". If I remember properly, the big thing about OfficeVision is supposed to be that not only does it do all of the aforementioned things, but it conforms to their SAA architecture so that all versions of OfficeVision, whether you are running it on a 3090 mainframe or an AS/400 or essentially ANY IBM platform that all files are interchangeable. Complaints about IBM have always been that there was one way to do things on the mainframes, another on the PC, another on the (fill in the blank) and there was no standardization between them. OfficeVision is supposed to eliminate this... +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Andy Silverman | Internet: silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu | | "All stressed out and | Compu$erve: 72261,531 | | nobody to choke." | | +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+
ander@pawl.rpi.edu (Michael R. Primm) (10/19/89)
Just think, to get a UN*X platform with a nice windowed interface (X11)
running at any reasonable performance level, 8 Megabytes is the
suggested minimum (as someone who has run X11R3 on a system with 8 MB,
I feel even this may be somewhat light)...and think what you'd pay for
just the operating system license, the hard disk space, and so forth.
--Mike Primm
"I have seen the enemy, and it is tunnel-vision"davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/19/89)
In article <15626@netnews.upenn.edu>, silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andy Silverman) writes: | Complaints about IBM have | always been that there was one way to do things on the mainframes, another on | the PC, another on the (fill in the blank) and there was no standardization | between them. OfficeVision is supposed to eliminate this... Is making the PC cost as much as a mini the proper solution? -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andy Silverman) (10/19/89)
In article <1255@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >In article <15626@netnews.upenn.edu>, silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andy Silverman) writes: >| Complaints about IBM have >| always been that there was one way to do things on the mainframes, another on >| the PC, another on the (fill in the blank) and there was no standardization >| between them. OfficeVision is supposed to eliminate this... > > Is making the PC cost as much as a mini the proper solution? The mistake is in assuming that IBM is targeting OV at the single-user workstation market. It seems much more like they're aiming it at the integrated corporate market where people use mainframes and PC's together. Much like they do internally. In this case, they're obviously hoping the large corporations will be willing to spend a lot of money. They're also hoping for the cost per megabyte to go down as higher density chips become available... +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Andy Silverman | Internet: silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu | | "All stressed out and | Compu$erve: 72261,531 | | nobody to choke." | | +-----------------------+-----------------------------------------+
biggity@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Jon Johnston) (10/20/89)
ander@pawl.rpi.edu (Michael R. Primm) writes: >Just think, to get a UN*X platform with a nice windowed interface (X11) >running at any reasonable performance level, 8 Megabytes is the >suggested minimum (as someone who has run X11R3 on a system with 8 MB, >I feel even this may be somewhat light)...and think what you'd pay for >just the operating system license, the hard disk space, and so forth. > > --Mike Primm > >"I have seen the enemy, and it is tunnel-vision" Isn't that about the same amount of memory required for OfficeVision??? I don't think that either or these systems is a widespread viable choice. Seems to me that both systems, OS/2 and Unix are about the same in size, (boht in hard disk space, memory required), and boht offer about the same amount of functionality with the exception that Unix supports terminals. Damned if you do, and if you don't..... UUCP: {rosevax, crash, orator}!orbit!pnet51!biggity ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!biggity@nosc.mil INET: biggity@pnet51.cts.com
wek@point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall) (10/20/89)
>If I remember properly, the big thing about OfficeVision is supposed to be >that not only does it do all of the aforementioned things, but it conforms >to their SAA architecture so that all versions of OfficeVision, whether you >are running it on a 3090 mainframe or an AS/400 or essentially ANY IBM >platform that all files are interchangeable. Complaints about IBM have That's the same hype I've heard, except that it's not just for files, it's for user interfaces as well. For the life of me I can't figure out where a 3278 terminal is going to fit into that scenario.
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/20/89)
In article <15677@netnews.upenn.edu>, silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andy Silverman) writes: | The mistake is in assuming that IBM is targeting OV at the single-user | workstation market. It seems much more like they're aiming it at the | integrated corporate market where people use mainframes and PC's together. | Much like they do internally. In this case, they're obviously hoping the | large corporations will be willing to spend a lot of money. They're also | hoping for the cost per megabyte to go down as higher density chips become | available... Not IBM. Memory chips from the regular suppliers are running about $100/MB, from IBM about $300MB. Knock off 30% corporate discount and you still get double. Since IBM makes their own chips there's only one reason I can guess for that pricing... greed. It can't cost IBM any more to make chips than everybody else, can it? -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
wek@point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall) (10/26/89)
>>Just think, to get a UN*X platform with a nice windowed interface (X11) >>running at any reasonable performance level, 8 Megabytes is the >>suggested minimum (as someone who has run X11R3 on a system with 8 MB, >>I feel even this may be somewhat light)...and think what you'd pay for Just out of curiosity, is that an official recommendation from one of the suppliers of unix? I've been told that 4mb is touch and go (probably more touch than go) but I haven't seen an official recommendation. > Seems to me that both systems, OS/2 and Unix are about the same in size , >(boht in hard disk space, memory required), and boht offer about the same >amount of functionality with the exception that Unix supports terminals. You're half right. They require similar resources. But... Unix has been evolving for 20 years and it still has a few minor bugs -- as any system with that volume of code is bound to have. OS/2 hasn't been booted enough times to even find the bugs. Unix is a rich programming environment right out of the box. All of the shells available have extensive batch languages that make compilers all but unnecessary unless you need the efficiency of a binary program or have to do windowed screen io, or (ok, maybe I'm exagerating a *little*). Unix also has awk, lex, and yacc language extensions to handle just about any kind of string manipulation you can imagine. There are also dozens of primitives like grep, cat, sort, find, pg, cpio, etc that can be piped together to create almost any command you need on the fly. There's no need to write a program to loop through a directory and move all executables to one or more subdirectories and other files elsewhere. You can do it on the command line. Unix is also multiuser. That can mean that all those expensive resources necessary to run the system don't have to be per-user-costs. Or it can mean that you don't have to dedicate machines on a LAN to remote dial-in when you have people on the road. Or it can mean that your workstation can enlist others on the network to process some tasks for it when the load gets too high. One of my company's subsidiaries has 4 AT's on a LAN dedicated to a customer support BBS. What a waste. Unix also runs on virtually every machine powerful enough to run it. That means that your company could have an IBM mainframe for a giant database, a VAX doing transaction processing, a Cray doing engineering research, and employees with '286 and '386 pcs, Sun workstations, and Macintoshes on a single network -- running the same operating system with the same commands for every task, no matter which machine is doing the work. Of course, a small business *could* start out with a single '386 running unix when they have only 8 employees. When they outgrow that system, they can select a new system based on the new capacity they need without fear of losing productivity while employees learn a new set of commands. Or, they could buy more PC's. Hardware becomes a commodity with unix. Processing power is already down to around $500 per MIPS on machines that don't already have a large user base using a proprietary OS on them. Don't get me wrong, I think there's a market for OS/2, and that it will do pretty well. But the reason for that will not be that it has similar functionality to unix with a better user interface. It will be because the majority of corporate users don't use MS-DOS to it's full (!) potential now, and they need simplicity more than function in their application launcher. Office Vision? Well, IBM has to do something. Their mainframes think in EBCDIC and speak synchronously. PC's think in ASCII and speak asynchronously. Businesses want systems integration. Their solution? Write distributed applications that further lock customers into their proprietary hardware platforms. ("Was it good for you?" "Mmmm, made my toes curl!") It's a reasonable approach for companies that are married to IBM, I guess. It is interesting to note though, that IBM's new President, Jack Kuehler, is an engineer (the first to hold that post) that has been working on RISC and UNIX projects for several years. It's also interesting to see 2-page ads for AIX in InfoWorld, PCWeek, Byte, and other major publications. Those ads aren't cheap. IBM's new RT3 line looks like it's going to be hot, too. I'd say that IBM is hedging it's bets. "My goodness!", you say. "Russia is becoming more Democratic and IBM is selling UNIX! Surely the Second Coming is not far off!" Not to worry. Gorbachev is still more dictator than president, and IBM is now insisting that AIX become the center of the unixverse. Life goes on... --------------- Bill Kuykendall Chicago, IL USA ...!point!wek wek@point.UUCP
ilan343@violet.berkeley.edu (10/30/89)
In article <[2659.1]comp.ibmpc;1@point.UUCP> wek@point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall) writes: >>>Just think, to get a UN*X platform with a nice windowed interface (X11) >>>running at any reasonable performance level, 8 Megabytes is the >>>suggested minimum (as someone who has run X11R3 on a system with 8 MB, >>>I feel even this may be somewhat light)...and think what you'd pay for > >Just out of curiosity, is that an official recommendation from one of the >suppliers of unix? I've been told that 4mb is touch and go (probably more >touch than go) but I haven't seen an official recommendation. > Interative's recommendation for their X running under 386/ix is: 4mb minimum (It runs) 6mb recommended + 2mb for each extra server running on the same machine.
feustel@well.UUCP (David Alan Feustel) (10/31/89)
All the standard UNIX utilities are now available on DOS and OS/2 from
MKS.
--
E-mail: feustel@well.sf.ca.us FAX: 1-803-854-18121
{ucbvax,apple,hplabs,pacbell}!well!feustel WORK: 1-803-843-1500x4504