ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) (08/10/88)
Mini-flame ahead, IBM lovers hit 'n' now! In article <670025@hpclscu.HP.COM> shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni) writes: [ Someone else writes that with IBM's backing, "OSF will not have to worry about sales budget, software quality, etc." ] >How do you think IBM sells anything? Product quality is usually priority >number 1 (like the Ford commercial :-)) at most of the big players in the >business. Yes, we all know this based on past experience. Remember the IBM PC (naww, hardly ever see them anymore :-)? IBM entered into a field it had no experience in, took some off-the-shelf parts using 5-year-old technology, bought an operating system from a company mainly selling BASIC interpreters, called it a product, threw some marketing budget at it, and look what happened. And do you think IBM has any reason to do anything differently when it comes to a "side issue" like SOFTWARE? Look, I'm normally not an IBM-basher ("Down with IBM-PC's", but IBM itself is OK). But the point here is that IBM doesn't NEED to worry about the design of an operating system; it probably wont even BENEFIT from any design advantages or popularity that the OSF product might posess. IBM's decision to be part of OSF was NOT out of a philanthropic wish for improvement of Unix software. On the other hand, IBM is high up on my list of companies that contribute to the "state of the art" of high technology. IBM pours millions of dollars into abstract and obscure research projects which may or may not show promise of being "profitable". Look at Mandelbrot's work with fractals, for example. If IBM wanted to, it could help OSF produce a better standard than exists today. In summary, I think IBM's association with OSF is "interesting". Whether it is "good" or "bad" remains to be seen, and it could have a drastic effect (one way or the other) on the future of Unix software. What scares me about IBM's "size" is not that it is "powerful", but that if OSF completely screws up all hope of standardization and enhancement of Unix, IBM won't even notice. If IBM did notice, they probably wouldn't be too upset about it. "Unix" is a trademark of AT&T; I used it above primarily in a generic sense meaning any present or future Unix-like programming systems. -- -=] Ford [=- . . (In Real Life: Mike Ditto) . : , ford@kenobi.cts.com This space under construction, ...!ucsd!elgar!ford pardon our dust. ditto@cbmvax.commodore.com
naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) (08/11/88)
Barry Shein wrote: >Although this seems less important these days at the time I last >seriously looked into it VMS sources required about 500MB of disk and >a kernel rebuild reportedly took a standalone 780 overnight. Why are VMS sources so significantly bigger than UNIX sources ? I thought VMS was mainly written in BLISS and so the size would be comparable to UNIX sources. Are VMS sources more heavily commented than UNIX sources and can that be responsible for the size difference :-) ? This is strange since Barry mentioned that VMS sources do not include DECnet and UNIX sources even with tcp/ip and NFS do not take that much space. Naim Abdullah Dept. of EECS, Northwestern University Internet: naim@eecs.nwu.edu Uucp: {oddjob, chinet, att}!nucsrl!naim
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (08/15/88)
From article <384@halley.UUCP>, by bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews): "... "By the way, before the IBM PC, it was typical for a system to trash the "contents of a diskette when it powered up. Also, the MTBF was *very* low. "Also, we had CP/M to enjoy. Whatever you may think about DOS, CP/M is "certainly much worse (like, swapping diskettes without remembering to warm boot "first and goodbye diskette contents). It may not have been *radical* change, What in the world are you talking about? My CPM system doesn't trash diskettes. I've used it regularly since I bought it in 1982,and I had my first problem this year -- with the disk drive door. For a given investment in resources, CPM is better. " but it was a big step forward in that it took personal computing out of the ^^^^^^^ -> backward Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/16/88)
In article <11410007@eecs.nwu.edu> naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) writes: >Why are VMS sources so significantly bigger than UNIX sources ? ... Because Unix was written (originally) by a handful of competent people. Also, said competent people were not under any compulsion to meet a formal spec saying the system had to be all things to all users, so they didn't need and didn't implement a lot of the obscure sludge that VMS has. -- Intel CPUs are not defective, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology they just act that way. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
peter@ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/16/88)
In article <384@halley.UUCP>, bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) writes: > If the people aren't who make products popular, why wasn't IBM successful with > the PC Jr, the Portable PC, the RT, and so on. If you think IBM was in control > of the DOS explosion, you've got a lot to learn. They were wildly successful with these products... by anyone else's standards. If anyone else than IBM had been selling these machines and sold that many, they would have been taken as a serious competitor. It's just that IBM expects better results... because they *get* better results. Also, CP/M was already being used seriously in business before IBM came up with the PC. They even had multiuser CP/M systems! -- Peter da Silva, Ferranti International Controls Corporation, sugar!ficc!peter. "You made a TIME MACHINE out of a VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE?" "Well, I couldn't afford another deLorean." "But how do you ever get it up to 88 miles per hour????"
res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt) (08/17/88)
In article <384@halley.UUCP>, bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) writes: > By the way, before the IBM PC, it was typical for a system to trash the > contents of a diskette when it powered up. Also, the MTBF was *very* low. > Also, we had CP/M to enjoy. Whatever you may think about DOS, CP/M is > certainly much worse (like, swapping diskettes without remembering to warm boot > first and goodbye diskette contents). It may not have been *radical* change, > but it was a big step forward in that it took personal computing out of the > hobby market and enabled the existence of a business market. Bull roar. I have an 8-year old Radio Shack Model II. It has not trashed a disk since I first powered it up. The TRSDOS operating system is not terribly exciting from a modern perspective, but it was quite adequate to the jobs I had for the machine to do. The MTBF of this machine is measured in years (one trip to the shop in 8 years!). It will also boot up under CP/M, which I use occasionally to take advantage of some Public Domain software and the Infocom games. I DO enjoy working with CP/M, grandparent (in concept, at least) to most of the succeeding DOS's. TRSDOS on the Model II is quite able to detect a disk change and to gripe about it if subsequent access to that disk (to open files) is needed. For many small business and government customers, the Model II was indeed their introduction to business data processing on a desk-top. The initials I-B-M gave respectability to this market largely because of the amount of press they got by entering this, already existing and growing, market. Rich Strebendt ...!att![iwsl6|ihlpe|ihaxa]!res
bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) (08/19/88)
In article <3345@ihlpe.ATT.COM> res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt) writes: >In article <384@halley.UUCP>, bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews) writes: >>[Bash of pre-IBM-PC 8080 machines] >>[Bash of pre-1981 CP/M] > >Bull roar. > >I have an 8-year old Radio Shack Model II. It has not trashed a disk >since I first powered it up. [Blah, blah, blah, ...] Well, it seems I have started something here. Whatever it is, it does NOT belong in comp.unix.wizards. I would recommend following up to comp.os.cpm or comp.sys.ibm.pc. Since I don't read those groups, I won't be able to join in the fun (ugh). Feel free to e-mail me your refutations, if you like. -bc -- Bill Crews bc@halley.UUCP (512) 244-8350 ..!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!halley!bc