terry@wsccs.UUCP (Every system needs one) (06/11/88)
In article <254@sdba.UUCP>, stan@sdba.UUCP (Stan Brown) writes: > > Please don't forget that DEC was eliminated from an ongoing Air Force bid of > > some $970mil (If I recall correctly). Being barred from almost a Billion > > dollars worth of business is sure going to make the likes of IBM, DEC and HP > > take notice. > Lets see if we can egt our facts straight here. As I recall > DEC protested the Air Force contract you are talking about > because it specifiec SVID. At the time DEC (I believe) a > SVID compliant OS that they were selling to other markets, > but wanted to make the point that the Govenmrnt (which can't > specicfy vendor specific details) couldn't (in DEC's opinion) > specify SYSVID as it was vendor specific. DEC does NOT have an SVID complient operating system. AT&T UNIX system V runs on DEC machines. DEC does not have this themselves... it is third party. DEC (aparrently) hates third party. What DEC has is Ultrix, and it's not likely to be anything complient in the near future. The machine I am typing this on is running Ultrix, and there are a number of rather severe problems. Among these is it's inability to use 8 data bit and no parity to talk out it's LAT ports... the LAT protocol driver is particularly screwed. The update in 2.0 (supposedly the fix) crashes the LAT I/O entirely. We are currently running 1.x drivers with 2.0 Ultrix. Besides, Ultrix is mostly Berkeley, and Berkely is not SVID... this, along with it's inability to display international character sets via 8-bit characters makes it a real loss when POSIX becomes involved in the specification. What DEC did is protest any time someone said SVID out loud anywhere. This was in an attempt to talk the Air Force into using VMS (Version Making System), something very propritary to DEC, instead of UNIX (something that runs on everything. This would have tied the Air Force to DEC hardware; since the Air Force already had hardware, they needed something to run on most of it. UNIX was the obvious choice, as most of the hardware that was running anything was running UNIX anyway. SVID was chosen because it was a standard. Since there is OFICIALLY no such thing as a published X/open or POSIX standard, SVID was it. DEC wouldn't have lost so big had it: 1) Been willing to support a third party (AT&T's) OS 2) Been willing to work on compliance (fix Ultrix) 3) Ported VMS to anything (not likely; BLISS doesn't run on an Intel 310 or a TACCS box) which the AF had. 4) Shown a willingness to provide an alternate standard any kind whatsoever. The Air Force wouldn't play VMS, so DEC tried to bully it into playing by DEC's rules (Munging the Air Force with VMS is suicidal); when that failed, DEC aparrently gave up. Aparrently, the Air Force doesn't feel it's any great loss. Besides, it's the Air Force's money and they should be allowed to do what they damn well please with it, especially if it means ANY kind of standardization that might carry over into industry. I'd rather have my taxes spent reasonably and responsibly any day of the week. DEC was stupid trying to make the Air Force knuckle under. > If I have any of this wrong please feel free to correct me. | Terry Lambert UUCP: ...{ decvax, ihnp4 } ...utah-cs!century!terry | | @ Century Software OR: ...utah-cs!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wsccs!terry | | SLC, Utah | | These opinions are not my companies, but if you find them | | useful, send a $20.00 donation to Brisbane Australia... | | 'Signatures; it's not how long you make them, it's how you make them long!' |
heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) (06/23/88)
I have it on good authority that DEC now has System V Release 3 in their price book. My authority says that the big company he works for asked DEC to make it a real product so that the big company could sell it as part of a deliverable for a U.S. Gov't dept/agency. I wouldn't be at all surprised if your DEC salesman denies it all. Sure makes a good rumor though, doesn't it! -- Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix "Failure is one of the basic Freedoms!" The Doctor (in Robots of Death)
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (06/23/88)
In article <10470@mcdchg.UUCP> heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes: >I have it on good authority that DEC now has System V Release 3 in their >price book. I've heard rumors like this before. Whether or not it's true, there is a company named UNIQ that markets UNIX System V Release 3 and support for DEC VAX. They advertise in some of the UNIX trade journals.
pickle@inuxc.UUCP (Greg Pickle) (06/24/88)
> I have it on good authority that DEC now has System V Release 3 in their > price book. My authority says that the big company he works for asked > DEC to make it a real product so that the big company could sell it as > part of a deliverable for a U.S. Gov't dept/agency. I wouldn't be at > all surprised if your DEC salesman denies it all. Sure makes a good > rumor though, doesn't it! > -- > Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix > "Failure is one of the basic Freedoms!" The Doctor (in Robots of Death) DEC currently sells System V Release 2, but only to ATT and the old Bell operating companies. I think they also will sell to other folks in the same line of business but am not sure where they draw the line. I was told recently by our local sales rep that DEC has now signed the Sys V Rel III license. DEC has a Sys V org of some kind in NJ. Our local rep has been quite impressed with their work. DEC's cluster equipment can be used with Sys V where it apparently is not yet supported on Ultrix or has just recently become available. DEC's Symmetric Multi-Processing stuff was avail- able for the 8820 series under Sys V the day the machine was announced which was even before VMS supported it. SMP will also be available for the 8830 & 8840 before VMS has it. Since the OSF announcement it hasn't been possible to get any kind of reliable information out of the local DEC folks on how their Sys V support is going to be impacted. One local rep was told by a national rep that it "was business as usual". The local guy and I both thought that was more a pious hope than a reality. The impression I got, filtered through experience in a large company, was that DEC's Sys V org was taken by surprise and perhaps wasn't aware of the OSF thing before the rest of the world. As someone from a western DEC lab said (Brian Reid?), large corporations are not monolithic, and there are often dif- ferences of opinion between divisions. Greg Pickle ...!att!inuxc!pickle ...!iuvax!inuxc!pickle Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not ATT's.
rjnoe@uniq.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (06/24/88)
In article <8143@brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes: > In article <10470@mcdchg.UUCP> heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes: > >I have it on good authority that DEC now has System V Release 3 in their > >price book. > > I've heard rumors like this before. Whether or not it's true, > there is a company named UNIQ that markets UNIX System V Release 3 > and support for DEC VAX. They advertise in some of the UNIX trade > journals. I don't really want to "advertise" but I do want to make it clear that this is factual and not a rumor. Uniq Digital Technologies, Inc. (address is 28 South Water Street, Batavia, IL 60510 USA; I think there's still a toll-free number in the U.S., 1-800-DEC-UNIX, or 1-312-879-1566 if you can't use the 800 number) ported the AT&T UNIX System V Release 3 source code to the DEC VAX line, including the MicroVAXen, the 7XX machines, and the 8XXX series. This is first-hand information, so there's no possibility of misunderstanding here. Uniq also picked up support for VAXen running AT&T System V Release 2 (in its various versions) after AT&T discontinued its support. Anyone desiring more information should contact Uniq directly. Please do not send me e-mail; I will not be available to respond in most cases. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. DEC, VAX, and MicroVAX are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. VAXen and MicroVAXen are plurals that DEC may not like but will just have to tolerate anyway. So what's the plural of UNIX? Unices? -- "A unique feat of engineering; I designed it myself." Roger Noe ...!att!uniq!rjnoe Fox Valley Software ...!nwuxf!rjnoe Uniq Digital Technologies +1 312 510 2105 Batavia, Illinois 60510 41:50:56 N. 88:18:35 W.