don@doug.med.utah.edu (05/29/90)
We went through exactly what you are doing two years ago. (Does anyone know where we can unload a Gould Dianza IP-8500 and a Vax 11/750?? The Vax is easy but we have yet to find any one intrested in the Dianza at any price.) When we made the switch there was only one choice as far as a good workstation is concerned. That was sun. Today there are several: 1. IBM and their RIOS 6000. Supplies are extremly limited today and if early benchmark attempts are any indication they are still a year away from having a product that can really work. Most of the test did not run on their machines. 2. Dec and their new line of unix like boxes. One has to wonder about their stratedgy with Unix and VMS. Even today we would stay away from the Unix boxes. 3. That leaves SUN which from the brief reasons above the reason we chose them and would again today. If you would like to discuss things futher please give me a call and I would be very happy to talk things over. In answer to your specific questions. > 1) Are there any reasons for choosing one particular workstation for use > in developing image processing applications? (or reasons not to choose a > particular one) My experience from a system adminstration point of view, you want to stick with one manufacture and pref. one type of workstation. It makes upgrades etc. much easier. We are however a mixed shop today Sun 3/s, Sun 4's, Sparcstations, Ardent Tiaton, and a new one coming (a steleado?) from Stardent. > 2 How difficult is it to develop and X-windows applications that support > multiple platforms (we know it is possible, but in the real world, what is > it like?) Sticking with the approved features of X we have not had any problems at all. (Surprise, surprise). It looks like someone came up with a very good idea. Be prepared for a large amount of disk dedicated to X though. By the time that you have a version running and then get a second one to begin the upgrade to the next release it eats a lot of disk. But that seems to be true with any windowing system. After a Vax though windows will be like a dreamland. > 3) For anyone who has a VMS/Unix shop, what are the difficulties in the > systems coexisting with each other? We are still running our Vax (some people just can't seem to get their project done, and refuse to move until then) here and the issues are moving our data between the two machines. FTP seems to be the medium of choice. We also have tried Sun DNI stuff and get random hangs and crashes. We then switched to a package by KI software and are able to from the Suns carry on sessions on the VAX and move data back and forth with no problems. They also have a packages that runs LAT on the Suns. So the investment in terminals and servers can still be of some use on the Suns. Strictly from a text point of view. No windows, of image presentations. Good luck, in your transition and again if you would like to get the details on our war stories give me a call. Don Baune Internet: don@doug.med.utah.edu University of Utah Medical Imaging Research Lab AC-215 School of Medicine talk: (801) 581-6088 Salt Lake City, Utah 84132 FAX: (801) 581-2414
dale@dandelion.ci.com (Dale Gallaher) (06/07/90)
In article <8230@brazos.Rice.edu> don@doug.med.utah.edu writes: >2. Dec and their new line of unix like boxes. One has to wonder about > their stratedgy with Unix and VMS. Even today we would stay away from the > Unix boxes. I wonder why you are saying this. We have been using DEC Ultrix since 1985 and have been quite happy with there machines. While the MVII was a dog as far as todays performance standards go, the DECstation 3100's and 5000 are very nice machines. We have both Sun and DEC machines in house and the performance of the DEC RISC workstations is currently significantly better the the SparcStation's (even the 1+). This may change with new machines from Sun; however, I don't think it is fair to eliminate DEC because of VMS. They are quite comitted to Unix now that it is the only thing that runs on the DECstation platform. Dale Gallaher Cognition Corp. Billerica, MA