gamiddleton@thunder.UUCP (Guy Middleton) (09/13/85)
We are shopping around for some new computers. One of the things we're
looking at is a box from a Integrated Solutions, Inc. Does anybody have one
of these systems? I'd like to know what they are like. I'm specifically
interested in the newer models, but general information is welcome too.
They seem to be in the same class as Suns; some direct comparisons would be
nice too.
--
Guy Middleton, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ont.
..{allegra,clyde,decvax,utcsrgv}!watmath!thunder!gamiddleton
..ihnp4!mmm!thunder!gamiddletonsob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber) (09/21/85)
Contact heather@baylor.uucp (rice!baylor!heather, ihnp4!shell!heather).
All I know is the tar program swaps bytes when writing a tape so
that a VAX running 4.2 must use dd to swab things before un-tar-ing them.
--
Stan uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob Opinions expressed
Olan ARPA:sob@rice.arpa here are ONLY mine &
Barber CIS:71565,623 BBS:(713)660-9262 noone else's.johnston@lbl-csam (Bill Johnston [csam]) (09/23/85)
We have been running two of the ISI Q-bus systems as back-end troff engines for somewhat over a year. These systems are rock solid hardware and software-wise. We have had no hardware problems, except for the failure of a cooling fan (which happened over Christmas break - the system ran for a week with no fan before it was discovered). Based on the experience of the past six months with some OEM systems, the VME based systems initially had some bugs (in the backplane for the 24 slot chassis, and in the kernel support for more than 4 MB physical memory), but these now seem to have been worked out and I expect they will be as reliable as the Q-bus systems. As far as the byte swapping tape issue, I don't know why they do not swap bytes in the driver (I guess it depends on your point of view as to whom you should be compatible with), but tar is provided with an 's' flag (like dd) for swapping on read or write. Bill [johnston@lbl-csam]
thompson@apr.UUCP (The Software Warrior) (09/24/85)
Beware !!! We have had an integrated solutions box for a little over a year. We have had lots of trouble. Their service has been less than satisfactory. We have a Q-Bus based 510 ISI Optimum. We have 4 Meg of RAM, 140 Maxtor, QIC-02 tape backup. We run 4.2BSD. Since we have had it we/they have replaced : Disk drive three times. CPU three times Tape drive twice, we are awaiting our third. Disk Controller twice. Power Supply once Tape Controller once. Card Cage once. At least one memory board. The system for the longest time would not stay cool. The first card cage that they sent us only had one fan. This fan not would not keep the machine cool for very long. My solution was to stick a window fan on the Optimum with the cover removed. In general it stayed cool, unfortunately management did not like my solution. Last labor day the single fan burned out. At the time the window fan was not on the Optimum. That caused lots of damage to boards. The fan, it turns out was a factory installed 50 Hertz fan. I am suprised it lasted as long as it did. After six months they gave us a new card cage with 2 fans. This allowed us to run with the cover on the machine. Eventually when the power supply failed they found out that the fan in the power supply was also not functional and replaced it. Now the machine will generally run unless the room gets up near 78. We can live with this, however I sometimes wonder if the internals are still running to hot and causing premature failure of components. When we got the machine we had 2 65 Meg Maxtors in it. The software would not support swapping so we had to run entirley out of RAM. That meant that there could only be one nroff job running on the system at any one time. They kept telling us that they just had a software bug that they were going to fix. Eventually we got them to replace the two drives with one 140 Meg Maxtor which solved the swapping problem. Then the first 140 Meg maxtor had a head crash. We sent them the machine again. Last month the 140 Meg Maxtor died again. Horrible crash, everything lost. We spent a good 2 weeks down waiting for parts. By the way, we tried to contact NBI (who bought ISI) for service, but they tell me they are not capable of doing it yet. The CPU died right after we first got the machine. I think that may have also been heat problems. Then when the fan went out they replaced the CPU board. The CPU was again replaced at some point because it would not address the full 4Meg, only 3.75Meg. The QIC-02 tape drive has already been replaced twice. First time I think the damage was done when we had the problem with the fan burning out. The second time the tape drive progressively got flakier untill we could no longer use it. They shipped us a new tape drive so we could back the system up before shipping it off to them for repair (there were several problems at that time). Now our tape drive is reading, but not writing. Last week I called to verify that they had shipped us a new tape drive and they said that they had shipped it federal express (We ordered it around two weeks ago). I called them this week and they said they would put a trace on it and call me back. Of course they never called back. Today I called them and their story is that it actually went out UPS Blue. I dont know if they are trying to buy time or what. And of course we have never gotten our upgrade kit from them, but I dont care, as long as the machine will run. In all we have sent the machine back about 5 times give or take a few. We have done numerous in house repairs and have waited long amounts of time for parts. The above is not a complete history of our problems with ISI and their equipment, but it does give a good feel for the problems we have had. Sigh..... I suspect we have had more problems since we got a fairly early machine, (our serial number is 35) but they have replaced just about everything short of the DZ board and the actual case. I like the machine when it runs because it has good response time and does not have any real bad software problems but it does give trouble. Ed +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | In Real Life : Edward D. Thompson | Just Visiting | | UUCP Address : ..cbosgd!apr!thompson | This Planet | | Compuserve Address : 75136,2024 +-------------------------+ | Postal Address : 2715 Tuller Parkway Drive, Dublin, Ohio 43017 | | Phone : (614) 766-6901 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ * General Disclaimers, Trade Mark Recognitions, and anything else....... *
hamilton@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (09/26/85)
i have 2 ISI Optimum 5/10's, received in jul (serial#48) and sep of '84.
one of them has been running continuously (24hrs/day 7days/week) at least
since jan '85, in an environment not designed for computers (in the summer,
the temp gets up to 90 or so).
the other unit got zapped by a thunderstorm. had to ship it ~150 miles
to NBI chicago for repairs. in the not-too-distant future, the local NBI
shop will be able to handle such jobs.
i like these machines; i wouldn't hesitate to get another one.
any other ISI owners want to start an informal user's group?
wayne ({decvax,ucbvax}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!)hamiltonjdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner) (09/26/85)
We've had ISI products here for a couple of years now. I believe that we were one of their first Q-bus 68000 board customers (I put their CPU and memory boards into our own LSI-11 chassis and loaded their distribution of UniPlus+ onto a hard disc from floppies). We eventually purchased their 68010 upgrade and upgraded this system to 4.2BSD. I had some early problems with data-lates on tape I/O during disc I/O, but a telephone call to ISI brought me new ROMs within a couple of days. We now have two additional systems -- Optimum 14/10 rack-mounted Q-bus 68010's. They are used as I/O processors for another machine, running a standalone I/O program. They have been rock solid. I literally just plugged them in and they booted UNIX, and aside from our own hardware, I've never had any problems with them. I've always found ISI to be very helpful, and after some pretty poor experiences with other manufacturers' hardware I was impressed with how well their machines worked and how easily I could set them up. They don't handle byte-order correctly on magtapes, though, as someone has previously noted. Aside from that I've been very happy with them. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California, or the U.S. Department of Energy. -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor [jdb@s1-c.ARPA] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!seismo!mordor!jdb
james@uwmcsd1.UUCP (Jim Lowe) (09/27/85)
We have 2 ISI Q-bus systems. They consist of: System 1 System 2 MDB Qbus box MDB Qbus box 12 Mhz 68010 10 Mhz 68010 1 1/4 Meg Ram 1 1/4 Meg Ram a DEC Synchronus board DHV11 2 DHV11's Emulex Sc03/Bx disk controller Emulex Sc03/Bx disk controller CDC 9715 (160Meg) disk Qic II 1/4" streamming tape drive Excelan Ethernet board Excelan Ethernet board Fujitsu Eagle (474 Meg) disk Also, the EE/CS department here owns 7 or 8 of them. So far neither of the systems has ever crashed (execpt for power failure). The first system we has been up and running since January; the second one since June. The EE/CS department had problems with one of them. After about a year of running the power supply in the Qbus box died. The rest of them have been running continuously for about a year and a half. In fact, over labor day weekend the air conditioning in the machine room went out. The temp rose to about 95 degrees. The ISI's were the only thing still running! The 4.2bsd port that ISI did makes them look just like a Vax. The speed of the 12 Mhz 68010 is about the same as our Vax 750. I/O is a bit slower (because of the Q-bus speed limitiation). The real difference is the price! I had a chance to try one of their VME based systems. I was very pleased with it. It connected right up to our ethernet with no problem. The system looked very much like a Sun (Bitmap graphics, etc...). It has an editor that is like MacPaint, an Icon editor, and other misc utilites. I found it very easy to use. -- - Jim ihnp4!uwmcsd1!james or uwmcsd1!james@wisc-rsch.arpa