[comp.sys.dec] VAX8000

MEGLAN@rcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (DWIGHT MEGLAN) (09/12/89)

  We have just received a VAX8000 workstation as a donation from DEC (can
you say tax write off?).  For those who don't know what that is (was?),
it is a 3D workstation developed jointly by DEC and Evans&Sutherland which
was released in early 1988 and within a couple of weeks of its introduction
the two companies had a major falling out and it was yanked from the market.
Through a long and drawn out process, we have managed to get one donated
(we have almost zero funds right now for capital equipment and are in very
bad need of some number crunching power) and we would like to make the most of
it.  I'll be writing a couple 3D animation programs to analyze and display human
motion (our lab does clinical and research evaluations of human gait in
3D using 6 camera VICON system, I already have alot of stuff running on
a MicroVax), but mostly we'll be using the 8250 cpu in the 8000 for number
crunching.
  I know that writing software specific to the 8000 is a dead end, but we
feel obligated to do at least a few things to use its capabilities.  Does
anyone have an 8000 or know someone who does ?  Any pointers on software
which is available for it would be most helpful (I'm not too optimistic
about there being any but it's worth a try :-)  Also, how compatible (or
more appropriately incompatible) is the HPWS windowing system in the 8000
with DECwindows ?  The preliminary documentation I've seen (the computer
showed up with no documentation !) says that HPWS is based on X windows.

Thanks for any information...

____________________________________________________________________________
What is the world coming to when people are obligated to include disclaimers
with everthing ?  In that spirit, anything expressed here was not said by
anybody.  Period.

Dwight Meglan, Phd-in-training/Research Engineer
Ohio State University Hospital
Gait Analysis Laboratory
1054 Dodd Hall
471 Dodd Drive
Columbus, OH 43210  USA (614)293-3808   Email: meglan%gait1@eng.ohio-state.edu

mitch@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Mitch Collinsworth) (09/12/89)

In article <3009@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> MEGLAN@rcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (DWIGHT MEGLAN) writes:

>  We have just received a VAX8000 workstation as a donation from DEC (can
>you say tax write off?).

Contratulations, I guess.

>Does
>anyone have an 8000 or know someone who does ?

We've got 4 of them :-(.

>Also, how compatible (or
>more appropriately incompatible) is the HPWS windowing system in the 8000
>with DECwindows ?  The preliminary documentation I've seen (the computer
>showed up with no documentation !) says that HPWS is based on X windows.

The biggest problem with them that I see is that DEC has halted further
development effort on them already.  The last version of VMS that HPWS
works with is V5.0-2.  And they didn't even bother to tell me.  I upgraded
our cluster from V5.0-2 to V5.1 and when I booted the first one, HPWS
wouldn't come up.  I had to call CSC to find out that you can't do that.
So now I have to maintain a separate LAVc at V5.0-2 just for the VS8000s.
And that requires a separate boot node because a VS8000 can't be a boot node
for a cluster :-(.

As to the HPWS .vs. DECwindows question, the first thing to note is that
since DECwindows doesn't run on versions of VMS prior to V5.1, you've already
got one source of aggravation - there is no version of VMS at which you can
run both window systems!  I haven't done any programming on either one yet,
so I can't tell you how different they are there.  I'm passing your note on
to someone here who does have programming experience with both, including
porting software from HPWS to DECwindows.  He should to be able to give you
some idea of how painful that is or isn't.

-Mitch Collinsworth
 mitch@squid.tn.cornell.edu