don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) (05/02/90)
On the subject of "upgrade by jumper"... I seem to recall a rumour floating around a few years ago, that a VAX 11/750 could be sped up by a factor of four by changing a couple of resistors. It sounds rather unlikely, but the story went it couldn't be faster than the 11/780 that since the machine was to be a low-end one and cheaper; this being despite the somewhat better technology involved. DEC's pricing structures were always a mystery to me, particuarly in the mid-80s ... they would not discount an aging machine; instead they would introduce a new machine with a higher bang for buck. Don Stokes (ZL2TNM) / / PSI%(5301)47000028::DON Systems Programmer /GP/ Government Printing Office Postmaster@gp.govt.nz ____________________/ /__Wellington__New_Zealand________________don@gp.govt.nz Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N + 1 unknowns.
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (05/03/90)
>I seem to recall a rumour floating around a few years ago, that a VAX >11/750 could be sped up by a factor of four by changing a couple of >resistors. It sounds rather unlikely, but the story went it couldn't be >faster than the 11/780 that since the machine was to be a low-end one and >cheaper; this being despite the somewhat better technology involved. The way I heard it at the time was that a group in England had sped up a 750 somewhat (I doubt it was 4X, more like 1.25X) by removing noops from the microcode (and, of course, the apocryphal "if you do this DEC won't service the machine anymore", probably true.) I'm fairly sure this did exist and remember looking into it at the time, something about their changes made the machine hang regularly, so you tooks your chances. Didn't sound worthwhile to me and maybe that's where it died, the speedup wasn't that great and the cost was. 750's were usually time-sharing machines, so reliability was a big issue. Now, how about the story about a certain well known defense contractor back in the hey-days of the Microvax-II (about .9MIPS, or 1MVUP :-) with their own silicon implementation that ran at 7 MIPS. But DEC refusing to buy back the design (supposedly) because it was too difficult (costly) to verify that their implementation really worked. Perhaps this belongs in alt.folklore.computers, although the person that told me that last story had just come back from playing with one, all excited (ca. 1987). So not really urban mythology, unless he was just plain lying, I tend to doubt it. I could name the company, tho I doubt they would appreciate it (why? who the hell knows, people are like that.) -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
lewine@dg.dg.com (Don Lewine ) (05/03/90)
In article <1161.263f4987@gp.govt.nz> don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: >On the subject of "upgrade by jumper"... > >I seem to recall a rumour floating around a few years ago, that a VAX >11/750 could be sped up by a factor of four by changing a couple of >resistors. Not true. The 11/750 was built out of gate arrays. It was the first mini-computer to be built out of gate arrays. Each array had 400 gates. The gates were not very fast. It would be possible to build an 11/750 like machine using much faster gate arrays, but that is a different story. >DEC's pricing structures were always a mystery to me, particuarly in the >mid-80s ... they would not discount an aging machine; instead they would >introduce a new machine with a higher bang for buck. I don't see any mystery here at all. The newer machince were not only much faster, they were also much less expensive to build. The idea was to get people to stop buying the old expensive to build machines and move them to the newer faster and more profitable machines. This is no different (except maybe in the time scale) than any other business. Why does Ford build new designs instead of turning out the 1960 model at a deep discount? --Don Lewine
lewine@dg.dg.com (Don Lewine ) (05/03/90)
In article <BZS.90May2202631@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes: > > >Now, how about the story about a certain well known defense contractor >back in the hey-days of the Microvax-II (about .9MIPS, or 1MVUP :-) >with their own silicon implementation that ran at 7 MIPS. But DEC >refusing to buy back the design (supposedly) because it was too >difficult (costly) to verify that their implementation really worked. This is another story based on only a small bit of truth. It seems that the govenment had some well tested FORTRAN code for tracking things with radar. The thing ran on a VAX and they needed to run it faster to track more targets at a given instant. The solution was to build a special purpose VAX-like machine to run this program. They left out a few details, like memory management. The machine was fast and it did run the program without modification. DEC did issue a license for this project and collected a very modest royalty. The machine was never considered for any non-military use. BTW, DEC has a very good set of tools that will verify that a given machine is a VAX. It would not have been hard to test this machine, even in 1983. -- Don Lewine
merriman@ccavax.camb.com (05/06/90)
In article <1161.263f4987@gp.govt.nz>, don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: > On the subject of "upgrade by jumper"... > > I seem to recall a rumour floating around a few years ago, that a VAX > 11/750 could be sped up by a factor of four by changing a couple of > resistors. [. . .] > DEC's pricing structures were always a mystery to me, particuarly in the > mid-80s ... they would not discount an aging machine; instead they would > introduce a new machine with a higher bang for buck. I heard this tale from a DEC tech, who works on KI-10s (there are still two running in Manhattan that I know about). He claims that, after the KI-10 was introduced, DEC marketing decided they needed an entry-level system. The solution was to ship standard KI-10s to the customer and have the field service people disable half the memory during installation -- a field down-grade. And then there was the infamous MicroVAX II RC (for restricted configuration). It sold cheap and was the same as any other MVII, except the last four or five slots on the backplane were filled with epoxy! I know of one instance where the DEC field service tech happily ordered new, undamaged backplanes and installed them in some RCs under warranty!
don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) (05/06/90)
In article <423@dg.dg.com>, lewine@dg.dg.com (Don Lewine ) writes: > In article <1161.263f4987@gp.govt.nz> don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: >>On the subject of "upgrade by jumper"... >> >>I seem to recall a rumour floating around a few years ago, that a VAX >>11/750 could be sped up by a factor of four by changing a couple of >>resistors. > Not true. The 11/750 was built out of gate arrays. It was the first > mini-computer to be built out of gate arrays. Each array had 400 gates. > The gates were not very fast. It would be possible to build an 11/750 > like machine using much faster gate arrays, but that is a different story. It was just a rumour. I suspect that the story came from the microcode "upgrade" mentioned by another poster (who's name I forget). Hey, we didn't have news when this rumour went around; and NZ was a long way for rumours to travel (hence my skepticism) >>DEC's pricing structures were always a mystery to me, particuarly in the > > I don't see any mystery here at all. The newer machince were not only much > faster, they were also much less expensive to build. The idea was to get > people to stop buying the old expensive to build machines and move them to > the newer faster and more profitable machines. The interesting part here is that they kept selling the old machines; the /750 was around and still being sold long after the MicroVAX II was announced, despite being a little quicker and a lot (half the price) cheaper. It could have been because people still wanted a low-end UNIBUS VAX to allow upgrades from PDP-11s (QBUS PDPs weren't terribly popular then) without having to change peripherals not supported by the QBUS machines. Did DEC (or anyone else for that matter) ever build a QBUS-UNIBUS adapter? We run a VAXBI-UNIBUS adapter in our VAX 8200 to drive some ancient synch/asynch comms boards (including a couple of DUP-11s, remember them?) salvaged from our 11/750s before they were retired. Don Stokes, ZL2TNM / / PSI%(5301)47000028::DON Systems Programmer /GP/ Government Printing Office Postmaster@gp.govt.nz +64_4_496_5681______/ /__Wellington__New_Zealand________________don@gp.govt.nz It is morally wrong to allow naive users to keep their money.
mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) (05/06/90)
In article <23254.26434102@ccavax.camb.com> merriman@ccavax.camb.com writes: >And then there was the infamous MicroVAX II RC (for restricted configuration). >It sold cheap and was the same as any other MVII, except the last four or five >slots on the backplane were filled with epoxy! I know of one instance where the >DEC field service tech happily ordered new, undamaged backplanes and installed >them in some RCs under warranty! What do companies do stupid things like this for? All it can do is generate ill will. I look at a crippled product and say "what the hell are they trying to pull? I sure don't like the idea of doing business with a company that does things like that." Are there actually people who fall for thsi kind of stuff? Doug McDonald
tomw@orac.esd.sgi.com (Tom Weinstein) (05/06/90)
In article <1173.2644246e@gp.govt.nz>, don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: > Did DEC (or anyone else for that matter) ever build a QBUS-UNIBUS > adapter? We run a VAXBI-UNIBUS adapter in our VAX 8200 to drive some > ancient synch/asynch comms boards (including a couple of DUP-11s, > remember them?) salvaged from our 11/750s before they were retired. I think some students at caltech put together a QBUS-UNIBUS adapter so that they could get more throughput from their disks. This was quite some time ago, so I doubt any of them are still at caltech. They may have given the design back to DEC, but I'm not sure. > Don Stokes, ZL2TNM / / PSI%(5301)47000028::DON -- Tom Weinstein Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems tomw@orac.esd.sgi.com Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.
john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) (05/06/90)
In article <1990May6.133250.18193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: > In article <23254.26434102@ccavax.camb.com> merriman@ccavax.camb.com writes: > > And then there was the infamous MicroVAX II RC (for restricted > > configuration). It sold cheap and was the same as any other MVII, except > > the last four or five slots on the backplane were filled with epoxy! > What do companies do stupid things like this for? All it can do is generate > ill will. I look at a crippled product and say "what the hell are they trying > to pull? Consider the typical purchase senario: develop a set of specs, then purchase the cheapest machine the fills those specs. If your specs call for a machine like the MicroVAX II RC, it should make absolutely no difference that the parts inside of the II RC are also in any other computer. If you wanted another computer, your purchase specs should have reflected that. > I sure don't like the idea of doing business with a company that does things > like that." Are there actually people who fall for thsi kind of stuff? 1. Shouldn't you be very happy that DEC offered a machine like the IIRC that was actually designed to sell for much more that what you were required to pay? 2. Consider how much the typical automobile might cost if it were not allowed to share parts with any of the cheaper or more expensive models available from a typical car company. Do you think that it is a crime that the car computer in the Dodge Shadow (which I own) has features in it that are only used in the Dodge Daytona turbo model? Would the Shadow be cheaper if Dodge were required to develop, support, and warehouse two different car computers, or does one common module seem to make economic sense? These are the kinds of problems that manufacturing engineers and managerial accountants work on--not computer scientists. -john- -- =============================================================================== John A. Weeks III (612) 942-6969 john@newave.mn.org NeWave Communications ...uunet!rosevax!bungia!wd0gol!newave!john ===============================================================================
hascall@cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall) (05/07/90)
In article <1173.2644246e@gp.govt.nz> don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: }In article <423@dg.dg.com>, lewine@dg.dg.com (Don Lewine ) writes: }> In article <1161.263f4987@gp.govt.nz> don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: }Did DEC (or anyone else for that matter) ever build a QBUS-UNIBUS }adapter? Yes, we have (at least) one, and I believe it is a DEC product. We took a VS3500 out of it's cute little roll-around box and slapped it into a big old '780 expansion rack so we could mount a UNIBUS box under it. [I guess it didn't look right to have a tiny little machine which was faster sitting next to a '780 :-) ] John Hascall Iowa State Univ.
melvin@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Melvin) (05/07/90)
In article <1990May6.133250.18193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: >What do companies do stupid things like this for? All it can do is generate >ill will. I look at a crippled product and say "what the hell are they trying >to pull? I sure don't like the idea of doing business with a company >that does things like that." Are there actually people who fall for >this kind of stuff? I think you're missing the point. A company doing this can end up providing a more competitive product to *both* the low and the high ends by: 1. using the increased volume of the low end to lower manufacturing costs, and 2. using the additional profit of the high end to pay for the cost of operations (not to mention R&D). Sure, some people will buy the low end, see a "crippled" product and think they didn't get their money's worth; others will buy the high end and think they paid too much because the lower cost unit is essentially the same. However, if you look at the whole picture you'll see that there is nothing stupid or deceitful about this, it just makes good business sense, and that means the consumer wins too.
thorinn@skinfaxe.diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen) (05/07/90)
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes: >The way I heard it at the time was that a group in England had sped up >a 750 somewhat (I doubt it was 4X, more like 1.25X) by removing noops >from the microcode (and, of course, the apocryphal "if you do this DEC >won't service the machine anymore", probably true.) We also looked into it at the time, but we didn't buy one. As I heard it, it involved a card which would sit on the CPU backplane (probably replacing the clock module) and watch the microcode words going by. Normally, the various clock subcycles are long enough for the longest delay path, but this card would detect cases where only short paths were needed by the microcode, and shorten the subcycles accordingly. -- Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Denmark [uunet!]mcvax!diku!thorinn Institute of Datalogy -- we're scientists, not engineers. thorinn@diku.dk
brian@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Brian Boutel) (05/07/90)
IN the '70s the Computer Centre here had a Burroughs 6700. This came in
two main versions, a 2.5/5.0 and a 5.0/5.0. These numbers referred to
clock rates in MHz for various procesor activities.
The Centre had some credit with Burroughs, and decided to spend some of
it on upgrading the 2.5/5.0 to a 5.0/5.0. Changing only involved a
switch flip, but there was a big difference in the list price of the
models, and the supplier wanted to charge for the upgrade, and increase
the maintenance charge. They argued that at the higher rate, some
components would be marginal and could be expected to fail.
A deal was done, and the field engineer came to make the big switch -
and found the machine was already running at the higher speed!
Internet: brian@comp.vuw.ac.nz
Postal: Brian Boutel, Computer Science Dept, Victoria University of Wellington,
PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: +64 4 721000
Fax: +64 4 712070don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) (05/07/90)
In article <23254.26434102@ccavax.camb.com>, merriman@ccavax.camb.com writes: > And then there was the infamous MicroVAX II RC (for restricted configuration). > It sold cheap and was the same as any other MVII, except the last four or five > slots on the backplane were filled with epoxy! I know of one instance where > the DEC field service tech happily ordered new, undamaged backplanes and > installed them in some RCs under warranty! Oh yes, I recall DEC Professional having an article on how to convert your VAXstation IIRC to a VAXstation II by repacing the backplane. The article made comment on the fact it took *two* (shock, horror) types of screwdriver to do it.... having pulled my MicroPDP-11 (same cabinet) to bits, it doesn't look too difficult, as long as you keep track of what order you take it apart, and the BA23 cabinet is small enough to do on a workbench. It started with something to the effect of "The only difference between the VAXstation II and the IIRC is the nameplate on the front and the fact the backplane is full of glue", and ended with "Now the only difference is the nameplate on the front"...... Don Stokes, ZL2TNM / / PSI%(5301)47000028::DON Systems Programmer /GP/ Government Printing Office Postmaster@gp.govt.nz ____________________/ /__Wellington__New_Zealand________________don@gp.govt.nz Murphy was an optimist.
sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) (05/07/90)
>I think you're missing the point. A company doing this can end up providing >a more competitive product to *both* the low and the high ends by: 1. using >the increased volume of the low end to lower manufacturing costs, and 2. using >the additional profit of the high end to pay for the cost of operations (not >to mention R&D). Lower manufacturing costs through volume? Bunkie, plant and equipment are fixed for quantity 1 or quantity 10,000. They may produce more units, and lower their variable costs, but if you think they pass on the savings to consumers, I've got this bridge to sell you. >. However, if you look at the whole picture you'll see >that there is nothing stupid or deceitful about this, it just makes good >business sense... Stupid? Ethically proper? NO. The name of the game is to maximize profits. The Ethical thing to do would be to drop prices and product more units... but if you have a limited market....you get into gouging people.
lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) (05/07/90)
In article <0093650D.EC790200@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU> sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) writes: >>However, if you look at the whole picture you'll see >>that there is nothing stupid or deceitful about this, it just makes good >>business sense... > >Stupid? Ethically proper? NO. The name of the game is to maximize profits. >The Ethical thing to do would be to drop prices and product more units... >but if you have a limited market....you get into gouging people. I think it's time to move the "screwdriver upgrade" thread to "alt.folklore.computers", which is perennially discussing that. It's also time to move the "ethics" thread to comp.misc or alt.flame. A parting shot: this practice is only "gouging" if you have the incorrect idea that production cost and sale price are closely related. I refer you to the cocaine industry for a counterrexample. -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science
mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) (05/07/90)
I heard that some Amdahl mainframes, which are usually leased, have fast and slow modes, and accounting circuitry, so that you are charged based on how often you use fast mode. Perhaps someone from Amdahl can fill in the details?
shore@mtxinu.COM (Melinda Shore) (05/08/90)
In article <385@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes: >1. Shouldn't you be very happy that DEC offered a machine like the IIRC >that was actually designed to sell for much more that what you were >required to pay? I do believe that this is looking at the situation backward. This practice makes it clear the extent to which DEC was overcharging for the uVax II. The difference in cost between the II and the RC was several thousand dollars, yet DEC was able to sell RCs and make a profit on them. At one site I was at we bought a *lot* of RCs, and replaced the backplane in most of them for several hundred dollars each. Even though we were treated like an educational site and got good (these things being relative) prices from DEC, it was still much cheaper to buy extra parts to modify the RC than it was to buy the II. -- Melinda Shore shore@mtxinu.com mt Xinu ..!uunet!mtxinu.com!shore
msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas) (05/08/90)
john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) writes: [much deleted] >2. Consider how much the typical automobile might cost if it were not allowed >to share parts with any of the cheaper or more expensive models available from >a typical car company. Do you think that it is a crime that the car computer >in the Dodge Shadow (which I own) has features in it that are only used in >the Dodge Daytona turbo model? Would the Shadow be cheaper if Dodge were >required to develop, support, and warehouse two different car computers, or >does one common module seem to make economic sense? I think this analogy is flawed. This is not component sharing as much as something else. It is like going to the car dealership and hearing, "This Cadallac costs $25,000, but this other model, which is really the same, is only $18,000 because we bashed the sides in for you at the factory." (Please, no jokes about how they already do that) While there may be reasonable business reasons for offering a basicaly similar but more limited and less expensive model, it seems to a lot of us that there must be a better way than this. Filling the slots with epoxy seems rather sneaky and underhanded. I certainly would be suspicious of a company that did things like this. >These are the kinds of problems that manufacturing engineers and managerial >accountants work on--not computer scientists. Engineers never did like accountants much anyway, right? -- Michael Pereckas * InterNet: m-pereckas@uiuc.edu * CI$: 72311,3246 NovaNET: m pereckas / imsa89 / cerl + My opinions are mine (no one else wants them, that's for sure). + + I will accept no criticism of my spelling of any words not in the OED2 +
mo@messy.bellcore.com (Michael O'Dell) (05/08/90)
The real issue here is that, for better or worse, cost and price are essentially unrelated, except that the latter is often, but not always, more than the former. The magnitude of the difference, however, varies astonishingly as a function of market and market conditions. -Mike
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (05/08/90)
In article <1215@mtxinu.UUCP> shore@mtxinu.com (Melinda Shore) writes: > I do believe that this is looking at the situation backward. This > practice makes it clear the extent to which DEC was overcharging for > the uVax II. Mt Xinu sells software, right? How much does Mt. Xinu charge for a single product? Do they have a flat rate for everything, since the marginal cost of a tape is the same no matter what's on it? -- `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net> 'U` Have you hugged your wolf today? <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com> @FIN Commercial solicitation *is* accepted by email to this address.
dfickes@world.std.com (David Fickes) (05/09/90)
In article <1990May8.045111.617@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas) writes: >> [much deleted about automobiles] >hearing, "This Cadallac costs $25,000, but this other model, which is >really the same, is only $18,000 because we bashed the sides in for >you at the factory." Oh come on .. they didn't bash in the sides, they welded the trunk shut... :) The basics come down to this... like many industries the computer industry is driven by revenue (dollar volume) and profit. Since R&D is already a sunk cost pricing becomes a matter of producing the largest dollar volume in a certain market with some consideration of variable costs (hey we've already bought the factory...) Its very similar to a large number of industries like say... publishing where something like 10% of the books printed support the other 90% and create the profits... the other books are there to give the people in production something to do... :) - david -- David K. Fickes dfickes@world.std.com (617) 536-6352
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (05/09/90)
In article <1215@mtxinu.UUCP> shore@mtxinu.com (Melinda Shore) writes: >In article <385@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes: >>1. Shouldn't you be very happy that DEC offered a machine like the IIRC >>that was actually designed to sell for much more that what you were >>required to pay? > >I do believe that this is looking at the situation backward. This >practice makes it clear the extent to which DEC was overcharging for >the uVax II. The difference in cost between the II and the RC was Well, you may be making an unwarranted assumption. Perhaps they sold the system at "breakeven" in an attempt to get the new account (because you couldn't buy it at full price), hoping to make a profit later on the upgrade. In other words, they deferred their profits in the interests of gaining a new customer. It sounds like it backfired on them. (I don't know that this is true, just a guess) -- --Steve DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own (I don't speak for Convex) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM
alvitar@xavax.com (Phillip Harbison) (05/09/90)
*** Warning! A megaflame about business ethics follows! *** *** Those who put profits before ethics should hit 'n' now. *** In article <1990May6.133250.18193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Doug McDonald writes: > In article <23254.26434102@ccavax.camb.com> merriman@ccavax.camb.com writes: > > And then there was the infamous MicroVAX II RC (for restricted con- > > figuration). It sold cheap and was the same as any other MVII, except > > the last four or five slots on the backplane were filled with epoxy! > > Why do companies do stupid things like this for? All it can do is generate > ill will. I look at a crippled product and say "what the hell are they > trying to pull? I agree that this practice is appalling; however, I feel equal disdain for companies that purposely limit the user's options at the design stage. A good example would probably be the original Mac. Here was a good idea that was purposely crippled, due to limited expansion capability. Just to upgrade from 128K to 512K required a motherboard swap! DEC is no stranger to this practice either. DEC management felt they were not getting enough of the add-on memory market, so they decided to keep the VAXBI proprietary. At their prices its no surprise that cus- tomers were buying elsewhere. DEC said they would license the VAXBI interface chip to vendors who provided "complementary technology". Translation: anything DEC wasn't building. DEC balked when Clearpoint wanted to license chip and build add-on memory boards. Clearpoint built the boards anyway, and initiated a program whereby the customer shipped in their DEC memory board, Clearpoint removed the chip and installed it in a much larger memory board. DEC even had the nerve to try to stop this practice. Last I heard, DEC field service also wouldn't touch a customers machine unless they removed all third-party hardware. The workstation vendors have apparently taken lessons from the big boys. Just ask Sun, SGI, or HP what they charge for a 300 MB SCSI drive. For what they charge, you could probably buy 3 or 4 of the same drives from a drive distributor. At one time, Sun was charging $29,000 more for a Sun 3 tower versus a Sun 3 desktop model. I consider $29,000 too much money to pay for a VME card cage and a larger power supply. Of course I'm sure we were paying for that designer look of the Sun 3 towers. :-) One thing I never plan to do is screw my customer. I believe it is better to make a fair, honest profit on the original purchase than try to low-ball the price up front, then shaft the customer later. My systems will allow the users to add standard memory (SIMMs), standard drives (SCSI or IPI), and standard bus peripherals (VME and NuBus). If my customers buy add-on gear from someone else, then I either need to adjust my price or get out of that particular niche of the add-on business. If I don't get any business because my up-front price is fair, then I will migrate to some other industry where a good business ethics are appreciated. -- Live: Phil Harbison, Xavax, P.O. Box 7413, Huntsville, AL 35807 Uucp: alvitar@xavax.com Bell: 205-539-1672, 205-880-8951
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (05/10/90)
alvitar@xavax.com (Phillip Harbison) writes: > Last I heard, DEC field service also wouldn't touch a > customers machine unless they removed all third-party hardware. I have heard this is the official company policy, but I suppose like anything else, it depends on who you actually deal with. We've got Emulex, Interlan, Able, and ECC boards in our vax and DEC field service has never made any particular fuss about them. Sometimes they do request that we take the third party stuff off the bus while they run diagnostics, but only if there is some reason to believe they might be causing the problem. If, for example, memory diags point to one of the DEC memory boards, they don't make us pull the ECC memory; they just swap the DEC boards and let us get on with our life. They do have a rule that if a non-DEC board is to be taken off the bus, the customer has to do it, which I can understand. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"
cprice@mips.COM (Charlie Price) (05/10/90)
In article <1173.2644246e@gp.govt.nz> don@gp.govt.nz (Don Stokes) writes: > >Did DEC (or anyone else for that matter) ever build a QBUS-UNIBUS >adapter? > There are (were anyway) at least a couple. Many years ago at Storage Technology we used a "Qniverter". I'm not certain about the manufacturer, it might have been Able (Able Technologies?). This product was a board that went into the first Qbus slot and connected to the unibus backplane with a standard extender cable. Of course there are problems in any such attempt at transparent translation. If you ignore Qbus block mode, the main stumbling block would be that the unibus has an 18-bit address and the Qbus is up to 22 bits. There isn't a whole lot an adapter can do about that transparently. Since our use was to run some Qbus peripherals (including some custom interfaces we had built) on an 11/44 this was not a problem. The reverse use, to run unibus peripherals from a Qbus system with >256KB of memory would not have been transparent. This illustrates something about the recent marketing/sales-price discussion. If there is a large enough need to be worth the effort, and filling the niche is "safe enough", someone will try to fill it. -- Charlie Price cprice@mips.mips.com (408) 720-1700 MIPS Computer Systems / 928 Arques Ave. / Sunnyvale, CA 94086
dave@fps.com (Dave Smith) (05/10/90)
In article <1990May9.141422.15056@xavax.com> alvitar@xavax.com (Phillip Harbison) writes: >*** Warning! A megaflame about business ethics follows! *** >*** Those who put profits before ethics should hit 'n' now. *** > >One thing I never plan to do is screw my customer. I believe it is better >to make a fair, honest profit on the original purchase than try to low-ball >the price up front, then shaft the customer later. My systems will allow >the users to add standard memory (SIMMs), standard drives (SCSI or IPI), >and standard bus peripherals (VME and NuBus). If my customers buy add-on >gear from someone else, then I either need to adjust my price or get out >of that particular niche of the add-on business. If I don't get any >business because my up-front price is fair, then I will migrate to some >other industry where a good business ethics are appreciated. Well, it's the right attitude to have. Unfortunately, there are some other realities that rear their ugly heads. We sell devices to our customers. We mark them up. Why do we mark them up? Because system integration is _not_ easy. Manufacturers' definitions of SCSI vary. Definitions of VME vary (though VME is spelled out in such thorough detail it is a little tough to get it wrong. Still, there are always people who don't read it thoroughly, have a different interpretation of what was meant or are just plain stupid). We put the pieces together and charge money for it. Are we evil? I don't think so. We put a lot of work into it and when it comes down to putting the system together, if it doesn't work, WE take the heat. Not the disk manufacturer, not the disk controller manufacturer, not the memory chip maker. We do implement the standards, though, and we don't put extra features in our VME busses or use weird cables for SCSI. If a customer is willing to put the effort into adding a third-party disk drive, that's fine. 85% of the time, adding something like this will be smooth. When it's not, though, who ends up putting in the time to make the disk work properly? Why, we do. If the manufacturer decided to put the bad track table in a strange place, who gets blamed? We do (Why, it's a standard disk, why doesn't it work in your system?). This, of course, is not to defend some rather heinous pratices, like DEC's BI bus strategy. However, to call a manufacturer terrible for reselling devices at a mark-up ignores some of the reasons for it (it's also an easy way to make some extra profit, too). If the customer is given the choice to buy the device and do the system integration themselves, or to have the computer manufacturer do the system integration for them and charge them for it, I don't see anything wrong with it. Oh, and BTW, FPS has nothing to do with my postings. -- David L. Smith FPS Computing, San Diego ucsd!celerity!dave or dave@fps.com ***QUOTE CENSORED BY ORDER OF REV. MOM***
jerry@altos86.Altos.COM (Jerry Gardner) (05/26/90)
In article <7754@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> davidsen@zephyrus.crd.ge.COM }+--------------- }| Question: does anyone make a system which is paged but not virtual? }| ie. I can have my program broken up in little tiny pages all through }| memory, but they are all in RAM. }+--------------- Yes, UNIX 32V (the original VAX port of Version 7) didn't have demand paging, but it did scatter-load code into memory. -- Jerry Gardner, NJ6A Altos Computer Systems UUCP: {sun|pyramid|sco|amdahl|uunet}!altos86!jerry 2641 Orchard Parkway Internet: jerry@altos.com San Jose, CA 95134 Guns don't kill people, bullets do. (408) 432-6200