denbeste@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) (10/10/87)
[Poisoned Line-eater bait] This posting is semi-commercial, so if that offends you, you should probably stop reading now. Bolt Beranek and Newman, my employer, is semi-diversified. I work in BBN Communications Corp., builders and maintainers of ARPANet, among other packet switch networks. Someone on the net noticed BBN's name in my .signature file, and sent me mail asking whether a program called "RS/1", a product of our sister company BBN Software Products Corp., would work on an Amiga, since it worked on his PC. Being intrigued by the possibility of getting my company and my favorite computer together, I went over and asked around. (I'll be describing the product in a moment.) Right now, BBNSPC is busy trying to port RS/1 to every UNIX(tm) system they can find. The only desk-top that it runs on is a real vanilla stock three-letter IBM PC. They keep a list of clones that it is known to run on, but is not guaranteed for. There are no plans now to port it to the Amiga. But... But, there is Bridgecard/Sidecar. Perhaps the Amiga could achieve status as another clone on the list? I've spoken to someone in BBNSPC marketing, and she sends the following description of the product: (Alert: Here is the commercialization) > RS/1 is a data analysis package designed for scientists and engineers to help > them better understand and manage their data. The capabilities of RS/1 > include: Graphics, Statistics, Regression Analysis, Modelling/Spreadsheet > capabilities, and a builtin programming language RPL. RPL is a language > designed by BBNSPC and it allows the user the capability of customizing > and automating the software for his/her application. > YES, you may have 2 RS/1 Introductory Kits. The kits allow functionality > of the package in a limited data set (where 'real' RS/1 has no limit to > the amount of data that you may have in your table or the number of objects > that you can produce, the Intro. Kit is limited to 20 tables -- each table > may be 20 rows by 20 cols.) The kits comes with a tutorial which > introduces the user to examples of how the capabilities of RS/1 can best > help them solve problems they may be facing. The "2 kits" she refers to are the two I asked for to try to give away to people in this group, to wit: I'd like to find a person with a 1000 with side-car (and some other hardware to be listed later) and a person with a 2000 and bridgecard (and other hardware to be etc.) and send, free and clear, copies of the RS/1 Introductory Kit, with no obligation other then that each make a sincere effort to bring it up and put it through its paces and report to me the result. (Was that *really* only one sentence? Gad.) So here are the requirements: An Amiga-1000 with side-car, or an Amiga-2000 with bridgecard, each also having: 512+K RAM on the 8088 side Hard disk on the 8088 side with at least 2.5 mB free space The real kicker is going to be the graphics: RS/1 does direct reference to the graphics memory (as do all good programs for the PC, since the BIOS is grossly slow) so we're sunk unless the Amiga's emulation of the graphics memory is truly tip-top. My motivation for doing this is, more or less in this order: Curiosity, Interest in trying to get BBN and the Amiga together, Interest in getting the Amiga into lab and engineering environments. RS/1 is a very popular product in such places, and it would help Amiga's penetration a great deal if RS/1 ran on it. (Indeed, my original correspondent wrote saying "I'd love to run RS/1 on the Amiga, but I have to use a PC instead. Can you help me?") Unfortunately, the 2000 and bridgecard are still so new that probably the only place I could find a machine stacked the way I want is on George Robbins' desk. That's OK with me if he is the only one who answers. I'll send them to the first person of each type who answers. I will serve as liason to BBNSPC for questions and help in the process of bringing up the demo kits. -- Steven C. Den Beste Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA or CSNET or UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste (UUCP) I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff.