thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) (06/03/91)
OPEN LETTER TO HP/APOLLO
HEWLETT-PACKARD, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ITS APOLLO ACQUISITION
Background:
-----------
When Hewlett Packard and Apollo Computer merged in mid-1989, many people
voiced doubts about the continued viability of the Apollo CISC and RISC
platforms. HP/Apollo made many presentations stating that there would be
continued, long-term support for Domain/OS on current and future merged
platforms. HP/Apollo claimed that there would be second generation RISC
platforms for both PRISM and PA-RISC, before a merged RISC platform running
Domain/OS, HP-UX, and OSF was released in 1992 or 1993. With the announcement
of the HP 9000/700 series and the cancellation of PRISM-2, the DN10000 system
has become obsolete. For Apollo users who need leading-edge workstations, the
Series 700 would be an attractive addition to their Apollo networks, but
Hewlett Packard is not providing the Domain Operating System (Domain/OS) for
these machines. HP is also failing to provide for a timely, smooth transition
to OSF/1.
Recent entries in the comp.sys.apollo USENET newsgroup have covered a vast and
varied territory. Three major issues have caused concern among Apollo users.
We would like Hewlett-Packard to formally reply to those issues.
Issue 1 : The future of the DN10000 - Problems
----------------------------------------------
Until recently, most owners of DN10000 systems have been assured that
HP/Apollo would provide ongoing upgrades to the series. When it was first
introduced, the DN10000 took the lead in workstation speed and
cost-effectiveness. At that time, the sales literature made the explicit
claim of "PRISM designed to triple performance every two years." The
performance of the HP 9000/730 demonstrates that such a claim was technically
possible. However, in October 1989 HP unveiled the new PRISM CPU and
announced a speed increase of only a factor of two. Recent announcements by
third-party software vendors concerning their future support of the PRISM
platform made us nervous, but still HP/Apollo was promising the PRISM-2 CPU
upgrade that would bring the systems back in line as a high-end compute
server. Eventually these assurances turned sour, and recently, HP announced
that there would not be a PRISM-2 upgrade, leaving many of us holding an
expensive white elephant.
Although the DN10000 series was released almost three years ago, and can
therefore be called a mature (if not obsolete) technology, many of the
systems in place are actually less than two years old, and were marketed as
viable, upgradable systems. Depreciating a one to four hundred thousand
dollar investment in this short a time period is not acceptable. Cutting off
the PRISM upgrades would have been similar to Motorola deciding not to upgrade
the 68000 line after its first release, or HP deciding to throw out PA-RISC
after one generation.
We fully realize that HP needs to merge their two RISC lines, just as they
have (very successfully) merged the CISC lines with the 9000/400 series
nodes. However, a merger of lines implies that both original products will
contribute, and that the end product will be a viable replacement or upgrade
to either line. This is not the case with the DN10000 and the 700 series
lines. The current incarnation of the 700 series system can not run in the
Apollo Token Ring. Few companies can blithely recable their entire building,
and this limits the possibility of Apollo sites purchasing the PA-RISC systems
in the near future. Even worse, the 700 series nodes cannot execute code
written for the DN10000 or other Apollos even after recompilation, unless it
was code that would run on any "vanilla-Unix" type platform. It is, bluntly,
a Hewlett-Packard node, and not an HP/Apollo node, as advertised.
Issue 1 : The future of the DN10000 - Solutions
-----------------------------------------------
At minimum, we need to have a replacement path provided to move from the
DN10000 systems to the series 700 machines. If HP/Apollo were to offer
a free, equivalent-power upgrade to its DN10000 customers, at least some of
us would be able to transition from one to the other. This would not,
however, satisfy the needs of many users who, for one reason or another, are
restricted to Domain/OS for an extended period.
A better plan would be for HP/Apollo to make a PA-RISC CPU board for the
current DN10000 systems, so that we can still utilize the disks, memory, and
other peripherals that are on our current systems. The DN10000 system is
a very elegant parallel processing system. The single-CPU solution that the
700 series offers is not sufficient for those of us who have single-node
software licenses, but wish to run several jobs in parallel (and at full
speed). A multi-CPU PA-RISC system in a DN10000 would be helpful in many
respects. It would allow us to utilize internal disks and tape drives
currently in the DN10000, and it would provide a partial fulfillment of
Hewlett-Packard's commitment to the DN10000 series. This would not satisfy
all of our requirements, but would provide a minimum response to our needs.
It would also provide a basis for the first multi-processor, second-generation
PA-RISC system. Making an Apollo system upgradable to a parallel PA-RISC
system might also convince us that HP/Apollo is serious about making PA-RISC
an Apollo as well as an HP solution.
Several companies are waiting for responses from their software vendors on
the resolution of this issue. Mentor Graphics has stated that they will
not support the DN10000 with their next software release, and that we will
be "taken care of to our satisfaction." Until this issue is resolved
by Hewlett-Packard, these vendors won't be able to clearly define what this
means.
Issue 2 : Support of Domain/OS - Problems
-----------------------------------------
Even more critical to our needs than a particular hardware platform is a
reliable, supported operating system and software environment. The O/S group
within Apollo has almost always managed to provide extensive backward
compatibility within Aegis and Domain/OS. Indeed, the entire Apollo network
concept is based on transparency of the network and of the individual machine.
When the DN10000 was introduced, there were concerns about the transparency
possible between RISC and CISC machines on the same network. Basically,
people doubted that Domain/OS would be the same on both platforms. Apollo
did a very impressive job of making the differences minimal. The O/S
installation tools themselves were made into compound executables (cmpexe).
If a site had a single DN10000 with no media device, there wasn't a problem;
the administrator could simply install the software using another node's
tape drive. The O/S and other Apollo software could be merged together
to form cmpexe objects for many of the products. Although it was not
glamorous, one site actually booted a DN10000 diskless off a DN3000 in order
to repair and reload the DN10000's disks without continually booting from
cartridge tape. The benefits from this hardware transparency are obvious --
programs written for the CISC nodes could be ready to run almost immediately,
and show a tremendous increase in performance; the current file systems could
be accessed in a transparent, logical, and consistent manner; client-server
Domain/OS programs could exchange information just as easily between the CISC
and RISC platforms as they had before in a CISC <-> CISC exchange.
The HP Series 700 workstations, however, will not support Domain/OS.
Moreover, the initial release will not support OSF/1. Until OSF/1 becomes
stable on the PA-RISC system, and applications are ported to OSF/1, the only
operating system that could be used is HP-UX. However, HP-UX does not
interact with Domain/OS better than any other vendors' Unix implementations.
The learning-curve for an operating system is at least a year, yet HP-UX would
be used at Apollo sites for no more than two years. This creates an
unacceptably high personnel cost for system administration. Even if it
weren't, the lack of an acceptable level of interaction between Domain/OS and
HP-UX makes it almost impossible for many Apollo networks to include the new
700 series workstations.
Issue 2 : Support of Domain/OS - Solutions
------------------------------------------
Ideally, we need to have the 700 series workstation run Domain/OS, in an
Apollo Token Ring (as well as in an ethernet) environment. Hewlett-Packard's
decision to not port Domain/OS to the new RISC platform implies an extreme
indifference to the needs of its Apollo customers. According to rumor,
HP/Apollo engineers have already ported at least part of Domain/OS to the
PA-RISC architecture. If this is true, a dedicated, concerted effort might
still be able to produce a Domain/OS release that would allow us to transition
to the next generation RISC platform, either as the 700 series or as CPU
upgrades to the current DN10000 systems.
Failing this, we need to see an intensive effort to make OSF/1 available and
stable as an O/S platform, and immediate modifications made to Domain/OS to
allow interoperability between the current Domain/OS systems and OSF/1. A
minimal level of interoperability would include the registry services, proper
file-sharing (in its current state, NFS is not acceptable to a Domain/OS
user), and at least limited inter-system status information (the Unix remote
shell 'rsh' is also not acceptable to most Domain/OS users). These 'hooks'
must be made available in the immediate future, not in late 1991 or in 1992.
With the useful life of a workstation continually decreasing, it will make
little sense for us to purchase systems that are (technology-wise) a year old.
Issue 3 : The transition to OSF - Problems
------------------------------------------
OSF is being touted by HP/Apollo (and admittedly by others as well) as being
the latest, greatest, standardest operating system to come around. HP is
also saying that it will have all the nice features that make us like
Domain/OS so much. Unfortunately, when pressed, it comes out that OSF will
not have many of the 'Domain-isms' that endeared Apollo to us in the first
place, and that kept us with Apollo all this time. These include (but are
certainly not limited to) file-typing, user-definable filetypes, PADs, truly
transparent file systems, the Apollo display manager with all its
capabilities, and the "automagic" networking provided by Domain/OS. Specific
networking tools include the node-name cataloguer (ns_helper), disk-space
monitors (lvolfs -all), status monitors (ps //nodename, pst -n //node, and
dspst -n //node), and node-configuration monitors (nodestat -c). In acquiring
Apollo Computer, HP gained a team of people who are very familiar with
networking issues and solutions. Hewlett Packard needs to capitalize on this
knowledge by providing a superior set of networking tools for OSF.
Hewlett Packard representatives do not recognize that the qualities of
Domain/OS are often significantly better than OSF/1. They describe OSF/1 as
having Domain tools, such as Task Broker. In point of fact, Task Broker is
an HP-UX tool ported to Domain/OS, that can require (automatic) file transfers
to the remote system. In contrast, all files in a Domain/OS cluster are
available to any node. After hearing that, we begin to question what other
parts of OSF may be mis-represented.
HP also does not seem to fully appreciate the features of the Apollo display
manager (DM) that they are replacing. HP-VUE is evidently a very impressive
graphical interface, but it will need these Domain features before many Apollo
users will willingly transition to it. These include the file-backed output
transcripts, 'cooked' input (as an optional input mechanism) with infinite
undo, the ability to drive the DM with text input from the <Command> prompt,
and the ability to bind keys to those same commands. (For example, it is easy
to bind a key to go into the output pad, search up for the last 'cc' command,
paste that command into the input pad, and execute the line. This particular
example can be semi-duplicated with the 'history' mechanism, but many other
commands cannot be imitated at all.) There are many opinions on what features
are "best" in a window manager, but the uniformity of commands over the full
range of windows (edit, output, and input) and an easily used, intuitive
interface are probably near the top of most people's lists. The DM is not
just a window manager with an editor attached; it is a consistent, well
designed manager of the input and output devices for all processes running on
an Apollo workstation. Many of its capabilities have been mentioned earlier,
but it is important to stress that the consistent behavior of the DM
throughout the entire user interface is extremely important.
Issue 3 : The transition to OSF - Solutions
-------------------------------------------
Most of us have come to the conclusion that we will need to transition to OSF.
HP/Apollo could ease this transition by providing a Domain/OS release in the
immediate future that would allow interaction with OSF. Coupled with a stable
OSF release on the 700 series, this might even provide an acceptable
alternative to porting Domain/OS to the PA-RISC platform. If full interaction
is not possible in the immediate future, an incremental implementation
starting with registry and file services would allow some of us to begin
transitioning, and would provide assurance to the rest of us that we will not
be abandoned. It must be stressed that this interaction with Domain/OS must
be provided to allow for a transition, and that it must be provided in a
timely fashion, since this is an industry where even six months can obsolete
hardware. It also must be noted that there are many HP/Apollo customers who
will not be able to begin a transition to OSF in the near future. These
customers need to run Domain/OS, and will need to have Domain/OS ported to the
9000/700 platform before they will purchase the new workstations.
Extensions to the OSF solution are essential to the success of HP/Apollo.
As a minimum, HP/Apollo should offer an extended Motif and HP-VUE for its OSF
product. These extensions would provide the advanced capabilities to which
Apollo users have become accustomed (see the above section), and would result
in an added-value product that would be better than the standard, while still
embracing the OSF standard. HP/Apollo should also investigate the
modification of the DM to run within OSF. At SR10.3, the DM was modified to
be "Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) compliant, which
means it is a fair X client." This implies that extensive work has already
been done to ensure that the DM can function in an X environment. This should
ease any transition to an OSF operating system as well.
Ongoing support is also needed for the current hardware. HP/Apollo must
support the keyboards that are currently in use. HP/Apollo must also continue
to provide keyboards with the 'Domain' keys on them (with appropriate
bindings). A very useful capability of Apollo systems has been the extensive,
user-definable keyboard they have provided. Although productivity is often
enhanced by the use of a mouse, it is very possible to run Domain/OS without
ever removing your fingers from the keyboard. This is possible due to the
vast key-definition capability provided by the DM.
The current HP/Apollo justification for not augmenting OSF's abilities --
that "standard is better" -- is unacceptable. It is the capabilities of the
machine, and the user environment, that are most important in making
purchases. Providing a set of tools that is no better than Dec's or IBM's
will provide no incentive to stay with HP/Apollo, or even with OSF. Providing
full interoperability with other OSF machines, while providing added
capability when interfaced with other HP/Apollo systems, and/or providing
additional tools in HP/Apollo's OSF offering will give us the justification we
need. Standards are essential, but better is better even when it is not a
standard. Extensions to HP OSF/1 with 'Domain-ism' will be an added value to
HP's workstations in the market place and distinguish Hewlett-Packard from the
rest of the OSF crowd. Standards should never be used as an excuse for not
providing the best tools.
Conclusion
----------
Hewlett Packard has again released a top-end workstation with the 9000/700
series product line. Now, it must provide the means for its Apollo customers
to use these workstations in the Domain/OS environment, and provide an upgrade
or transition for the owners of the Apollo DN10000 systems. If we are forced
to move from Domain/OS to HP-UX or OSF without a smooth transition (jumping
from one moving train to another is not 'smooth'), then we will start from
scratch in our workstation vendor search. Without Domain/OS (or
interoperability with Domain/OS), HP's machines are just like anyone else's.
Unless we can depend on HP/Apollo to support our transitions, we will not be
able to rely on its products at all.
We hope that Hewlett-Packard will accept this critique in the same positive
spirit with which we have prepared it, and will act quickly to fulfill our
three requests. Individual replies are not expected: as we have used
the USENET as a public forum for the gathering of this information, so
would we enjoy hearing HP/Apollo's response in this group.
Disclaimer
----------
This document was written with input from numerous people. While all
signatories support its aims and general thrust, not everyone is necessarily
in complete agreement on the details of all points. The views expressed are
those of individuals, and do not in general represent official policy of the
institutions or companies of which the signatories are members. (This
should not be taken as a license to discount those views, however: in the
long run the individual views of computer users and system managers tend to
affect or even determine institutional computing policy and purchasing
decisions.)
Signatories
-----------
John Thompson - Design Services Engineer / System Administrator
Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441
thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2604
Honeywell SSEC has about 70 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10000s.
I am concerned with all of the issues, as I must maintain a functional
network which meets the H/W and S/W needs of Honeywell SSEC projects.
******************************************************************************
Kent Kuriyama / Electrical Engineer Voice (808) 257-1618
Naval Ocean Systems Center FAX (808) 257-1685
Hawaii Laboratory Box 997, Code 531
kent@nosc.mil Kailua, HI 96734
NOSC HI has 4 Apollo workstations. I am concerned about the lack
of Domain OS support on the series 700. Failing a 700 series
port of Domain we need interoperability with OSF/1 to ease
transition problems.
******************************************************************************
Herb Peyrel
UUCP: herb@ajfcal.UUCP || #define Janitor Administrator
I brew, therefore I am.. || Apollo System_Janitor, NovAtel Communications
"I spilled spot remover on my dog and now he's gone..." <Steven Wright>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I administer a network of 84 Domain/OS workstations comprising mostly of
DN3550's with some DN4500's, DN3000's, HP9000s4xx's, and 2 DN100x0's. I
also am responsible for an additional 10 HP9000s3xx's running HP-UX.
******************************************************************************
Paolo Petta (paolo%ai-vie.uucp@relay.eu.net),
Dept. Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, Univ.of Vienna &
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Vienna,
Austria, Europe.
(26 DN3000 + 3 DN5500, SR10.3 BSD4.3)
******************************************************************************
Christian Schuh
Systems Analyst
Siemens Corporate Research, Inc.
755 College Road East
Princeton, NJ 08540
I administer two Apollo Tokenring Networks, with appr. 30 workstations
including a DN10020
******************************************************************************
Ashleigh Quick | ACSnet: AGQ@dstos3.dsto.oz
Defence Science and Technology Organisation| Internet: AGQ@dstos3.dsto.oz.au
PO Box 1600 | Phone: (Intl) (+61 8) 259 6975
Salisbury 5108 | (Local) (08) 259 6975
Australia |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My organisation has about 70 Apollo workstations which run software
from a wide range of vendors. We rely heavily on Domain/Os for our
current and future Operating system support.
******************************************************************************
Alisdair Craig
Computer Infrastructure Manager
Engineering Design Research Centre - United Kingdom
We purchased 25 Apollo workstation including DN10040 to provide a complete
phase 1 research infrastructure. This massive investment is now being
considerably reduced in value.
******************************************************************************
Dipl.-Ing. Lutz Jaenicke, electrical engineer
Assistant in Research and Education, system-administration
Institut fuer Elektrische Maschinen, Technische Universitaet Berlin
Einsteinufer 11, D-1000 Berlin 10, jaenicke@w414zrz.ee.tu-berlin.de
System: DN10000; Please, don't forget about the DN10000, we spent
lots of money to get a highest performance number-cruncher.
******************************************************************************
Mike Peterson, System Administrator,
University of Toronto Department of Chemistry,
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca Tel: (416) 978-7094
We have 2 DN580, 1 DN2500, 1 DN4500, 1 DN10020. We are especially
concerned about the DN10000 "future" (i.e. the lack thereof), and the
paltry "trade-up" program that is in place.
******************************************************************************
Tim Schneider Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division
CAE Project Engineer (Digital Simulation and Modeling)
Phone:(602) 436-3078 US Mail: P.O. Box 21111 M/S K26E2 Phoenix, AZ 85036
Inet: timsc@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com UUCP: uunet!asuvax!apciphx!hwcae!timsc
123 Apollo/Hp Workstations
(3 dn10000's, 31 hp400 series the rest dn3xxx dn4xxx Apollo's)
******************************************************************************
Dr. A.A. Rademakers - Application Software Group, CN Division,
CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, 1123 Geneve, Switzerland.
CERN has about 200 Apollo workstation, including more than 20 DN10000s.
I am especially concerned with the loss of DM functionality on the 9000/700
series.
******************************************************************************
Luigi Sarti - Researcher
Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche - Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche
Via all'Opera Pia, 11 - 16145 GENOVA - ITALY
sarti@ice.ge.cnr.it
******************************************************************************
Roger Lindell - Research Engineer / System Administrator
Dept. of Speech Communication and Music Acoustics,
Royal Institute of Technology || Box 70014, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
rog@speech.kth.se || +46 8 7907573
The Dept. has 12 Apollo Workstations, including 1 DN10000.
******************************************************************************
Paul Szabo - System Manager // School of Mathematics and Statistics
szabo_p@maths.su.oz.au // University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
The School has almost 150 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s. We need
a uniform user interface across the network. Many of our nodes will not ever
go to OSF so continued support for Domain/OS and smooth interoperability are
essential until the whole of the network can be upgraded to OSF.
******************************************************************************
R. T. Pierrehumbert, Professor in Geophysical Sciences
Dept. of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago.
rtp1@midway.uchicago.edu
I currently have one DN10000, and have recently purchased an IBM RS/6000
system. I am principal investigator of our NSF Science and Technology Center
for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate, and have responsibility for setting up a
computational facility for this center. I am also a member of the
University's Committee on High Performance Computing, which is currently
seeking a solution for the University of Chicago's strategic computing needs.
******************************************************************************
Dave Schmidt - Scientist / System Administration
Naval Ocean Systems Center | San Diego, Ca. 92138
schmidtd@peanuts.nosc.mil | (619) 553 - 1664
Currently managing about 60 apollos.
******************************************************************************
Motorola Incorporated Barry R. Spotts
Semiconductor System Design Technology 3501 Ed Bluestein Boulevard
Austin, Texas 78721
Internal Address: spotts@ssdt-bluestein MailDrop: M-2
UUCP Address: spotts@ssdt-bluestein.sps.mot.com (512) 928-6630
******************************************************************************
Tony John, Contract Engineer Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems
612-785-4256 MN51-1320 8840 Evergreen Blvd.
tjohn@gumby.cfsmo.honeywell.com Coon Rapids, MN 55433
At CFS we have 25 HP/Apollo systems including a DN10020. We need the
performance of the DN10020 in a Domain/OS environment.
I don't believe that HP listens to their customers any more.
Especially not their Apollo customers. HP has killed Apollo.
******************************************************************************
Kee Hinckley, Vice President
Alfalfa Software Inc
185 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA 02138
nazgul@alfalfa.com 617/497-2922
Alfalfa is an ISV of Electronic Mail Systems for
X/Unix platforms. Prior to the formation of Alfalfa
several of us were part of the group responsible for
Apollo's User Environment.
******************************************************************************
Roger G. Booth, Systems Engineer | (619) 581-6181
Systems Engineering Asscoiates | rbooth@sea.com
2204 Garnet St. #203 | rbooth@nprdc.navy.mil
San Diego, CA 92109
Under contract to navy client, I maintain and upgrade network of 16 apollos.
On my recommendation, he plans to move from DN3500 to HP 9000/425t.
******************************************************************************
James R. Spitzenberger - Layout Engineer
Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441
spitz@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2915
I share responsibility in determining the viability of hardware and software
to be used by the layout group with Hardware Services. There are 9 nodes used
by the layout group. I am very concerned with all of these issues.
******************************************************************************
Jeff Hildebrand - Design Automation Engineer
Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center - Plymouth Minnesota
hildebrand@pan.ssec.honeywell.com
I am concerned with the productivity loss that will be experienced when we
need to migrate off Domain/OS if there is not a well developed migration
strategy to OSF.
******************************************************************************
Eric Bushnell, System Administrator
University of Washington
etb@u.washington.edu
"Frustrated by the lack of Domain/OS support for the 9000/700, and
sympathetic to DN10000 owners."
******************************************************************************
Reynaldo W. Newman
Mgr, Engineering Systems
Titan Linkabit
3033 Science Park Rd.
San Diego, CA - 92121
******************************************************************************
Larry E. Smith - CAD/CAM Analyst/System Administrator |S1074/SRL
Ford Motor Co., Scientific Research Laboratories |Dearborn, MI
smithl@apollo.srl.ford.com |48187
Supporting 80 Apollo workstations including 6 DN10000s.|313-337-3123
(This is my opinion and not necessarily my company's.) |
******************************************************************************
Alan Scheinine, Physics Graduate Student and Apollo System Admin.
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 u10534@uy.ncsa.uiuc.edu
A small group with a four-processor DN10K. Learning to administer Domain/OS
was costly in time. Learning HP-UX during an interim period will waste the
time of grad students that only get respect for doing physics. A white
elephant is too costly to feed, which describes the DN10K service agreement.
******************************************************************************
Clemens Rihaczek ISD (Department for Statics and
Dynamics of Aerospace Structures)
University of Stuttgart
fax: +49 711-685-3706 7000 Stuttgart 80, Germany.
voice: +49 711-685-3899
Internet: rihaczek@dogmatix.luftfahrt.uni-stuttgart.de (129.69.110.10)
We have one DN10040 (4 CPU's, 128MB, 2.8GB), one DN10020 (2CPU's, 16MB, 1.4GB,
VS-Graphics), twenty DN3500's, and four DN2500's. We have been amused by HP's
offer of a DM 7000.-- rebate on a HP9000/700 for turning in a DN10000. We
have started shopping other vendors.
******************************************************************************
= Daryl Winters Project Manager, SoftBench Licensing =
= Hewlett-Packard winters@hpfcbozo.sde.hp.com =
= Software Engineering Systems winters@apollo.hp.com =
= 3404 East Harmony Road dwinters@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu =
= Ft. Collins, CO 80525 (303) 229-6828 =
As an ex-Apollo employee, I am interested in supporting loyal Apollo customers
******************************************************************************
Mike Muegel | Internet: mmuegel@mot.com
Software Tools Group | UUCP: uunet!motcid!muegel
Fort Worth Research & Development Center | Internal: TX14/1C
Cellular Infrastructure Group | Voice: (817) 232-6129
Radio Telephone Systems Group | Fax: (817) 232-6081
We have approximately 140 nodes here. The fact that the new 700 box does not
support Domain/OS is very disconcerting.
******************************************************************************
Jim Rees <rees@citi.umich.edu>
Institutional File System Project
University of Michigan
******************************************************************************
Kenneth Van Riper - Physicist / Astronomer / System Administrator
Los Alamos National Laboratory || (X-6, MS B226 / PO BOX 1663
kvr@lanl.gov || Los Alamos, NM 87544 )
I have invested a lot of time in learning DOMAIN/OS and
programming using DOMAIN/AEGIS calls. I do not wish to
throw it all away.
******************************************************************************
Th. Herbert, Professor
Mech. Eng. Dept.
The Ohio State Univ.
206 W. 18th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 292-2902
tht@apollo.eng.ohio-state.edu
******************************************************************************
Ch. Hawley, Systems Programmer
Mech. Eng. Dept.
The Ohio State Univ.
206 W. 18th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 292-3904
crh@renoir.eng.ohio-state.edu
******************************************************************************
Hans Chr Nielsen - Programmer
Sysdeco A/S || Chr Michelsens gt 65, 0474 Oslo 4
hcn@sysdeco.no || Norway 02 38 30,90
We develop the 4GL SYSTEMATOR and standard applications on about 25
Apollo workstations and one DN10000. We use DSEE in the development
and also to generate versions on a wide range of platforms.
******************************************************************************
Peter Yardley - Computer Systems Administrator
Computer Systems Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering
University of Technology, Sydney | +61-2-218-9385
Australia | petery@uts.edu.au
HP must provide ongoing support for it's Apollo customers.
******************************************************************************
Ken Smelcer -- Glenayre Electronics -- Quincy, IL
System Admin/Software Engineer -- quintro!kts@lll-winken.llnl.gov
Glenayre has a Token-Ring network of 21 DN2500/3000/3500/4000/400t
machines. I am very concerned about the lack of Apollo support for
the 700 series, especially in the areas of Domain/OS and Token-Ring
networking.
******************************************************************************
Doug Vander Wilt, CAD/CAM Engineer, MICRO SWITCH Division of Honeywell
dwv@cadnet.micro.honeywell.com (815)235-6615
******************************************************************************
Tony Honchar, CAD/CAM Engineering Manager, MICRO SWITCH Division of Honeywell
thh@cadnet.micro.honeywell.com (815)235-6829
******************************************************************************
Ted Vriezen - Design Automation Engineer
Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441
vriezen@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2661
******************************************************************************
-- Paul Goldsmith
<goldfish@concour.cs.concordia.ca> (514) 848-3031
Concordia Computer Science has a four node Apollo network and has purchased
many more Suns, DEC, etc ... since the HP/Apollo merger. Mediocrity is not a
selling point. It is also noteworthy that there are no remaining Apollo
people in the HP-Canada organization.
******************************************************************************
Paul Ashton Beckman Instruments Inc.
phone: (714) 993-8416 Diagnostic Systems Group
fax: (714) 961-4126 200 S. Kraemer Blvd
Internet: p_ashton@dsg4.dse.beckman.com Brea, California 92621
Approx 160 HP/Apollo workstations (hp400, dn3xxx,4xxx, dn10K (1))
******************************************************************************
David J. Young - CAE Support Engineer / System Administrator
Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division Phoenix AZ 85036
davidy@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com (602) 436-1311
Honeywell ATSD has 88 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10020s. I am *very*
concerned with all of these issues, since I must administer a network to sup-
ports Honeywell ATSD projects, and don't like what is happening to the Apollo.
******************************************************************************
Steven C. Mikes - Hardware/Software Engineer and System Administrator
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena,CA 91109
smikes@kathy.jpl.nasa.gov (818) 354-9732
I only have two Apollo workstations, but find that given the choice,
I prefer to use them over any other machine I have. Without Domain/OS
and the Display Manager, I might as well save money and buy a Sun.
******************************************************************************
Augusto Chioccariello - Researcher
Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche - Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche
Via all'Opera Pia, 11 - 16145 GENOVA - ITALY
augusto@ice.ge.cnr.it
3 DN4000 + 1 400
******************************************************************************
Paul Schenk | University of Victoria
| CERN PPE / OPAL
pschenk%cernapo@cernvax.cern.ch <- Pref.
pschenk@cernvm.cern.ch
schenk@uvvm.bitnet
OPAL is one of four large particle physics experiments at the new
CERN electron-positron collider. We use apollo DN10000s in our
online data aquisition and reconstruction tasks.
We had counted on upgrading these machines, now with that possibility
gone we will have to consider other multiprocessing alternatives.
Without the DM, the Domain filesystem and the transparent registries,
there is nothing holding us to a single vendor.
******************************************************************************
Philip Pokorny - Software Support Engineer/System Administrator
Cummins Electronics, Inc. philip@cel.cummins.com
Columbus, IN 47201 (812)377-5161
I support a group of about 40 software engineers working with DSEE on Apollo
workstations. The primary environment is Aegis. I'm concerned about
continuing support for DSEE and Aegis on new hardware. (ie. 700)
******************************************************************************
/\/\ Robin Brown
/ / /\ System Administrator - Unix Systems and CAD/CAM/CAE
/ / / \ Computer Systems Group
/ / / /\ \ BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories
\ \/ / / / 245 Wellington Rd Mulgrave Vic 3170 AUSTRALIA
\ / / / Phone : +61-3-560-7066, Fax : +61-3-561-6709
\/\/\/ E-mail : robinb@resmel.bhp.com.au
PSImail : psi%austpac.0505235633005::robinb
******************************************************************************
Gregory Rocco - design engineer (ICs, boards and systems)/System Admin
MIT Lincoln Laboratory; PO box 73; Lexington, MA 02173-9108
Chairman, Mentor Graphics user's group
email: rocco@ll.mit.edu voice:617-981-3419 FAX:617-981-0721
The 700 series looks like a very nice box, too bad I have to wait a long time
before using it (do not want to run HP-UX). Would really like support of ATR.
******************************************************************************
Jinfu Chen, Senior Software Engineer
Logic IC Division, Motorola, Inc., Mesa, AZ85202
chen@digital.sps.mot.com, (602)898-5338
Our division has over 80 Apollo DN series and 20 HP 9000/400 series work-
stations. A large portions of our internal developed software are still
running on SR9.7. We'd love to make a big jump to use HP's 9000/700 series
running OSF/1 if HP can provide sufficient transition aids.
******************************************************************************
Jeff O'Neil - Director Advanced Systems
ARCO Oil and Gas Company, Research & Technical Services
Plano, TX 75075 || (214) 754-3959 || jco@arco.com
On site we have 14 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s.
The HP/Apollo Dallas office is quite aware of my concerns on
these issues, many of which are reflected in this letter.
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Dave Schmidt - Scientist / System Administration
Naval Ocean Systems Center | San Diego, Ca. 92138
schmidtd@peanuts.nosc.mil | (619) 553 - 1664
Currently managing about 60 apollos.
******************************************************************************
Graham Clarke. Computer Technical Officer. Department of Computer Science,
University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, Essex, England.
e-mail: clarg@uk.ac.essex, telephone: (0206) 872340 or +44 206 872340
We have a mixture of Apollo DN3000,3500,4500 and HP 9000/400 series running
Domain/OS 10.3 and 9.7 a total of thirteen machines.
******************************************************************************
Stein Ullaland - Professor
Dept. of Physics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Phone: +47 5 212749
Stein.Ullaland@cc.uib.no
15 Apollo/HP workstations including 1 DN10000
******************************************************************************
Magne Havag - Senior Engineer/System Administrator
Dept. of Physics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Phone: +47 5 212755
nfymh@cc.uib.no
15 Apollo/HP workstations including 1 DN10000
******************************************************************************
Sebastian Wangnick basti@orthogo.uucp
Orthogon System GmbH Tel: +49 421 219136
Linzer Strasse 4 Fax: +49 421 213093
D-2800 Bremen 33 Germany
Orthogon developes software for and is consultor of the european air-traffic
control agency Eurocontrol and its members throughout europe, which all have
a vast amount of apollos running. They don't have access to even email, but
from discussions I conclude they share the opinions expressed in this letter.
******************************************************************************
Colin Dente dente@manchester.ac.uk
Manchester Computing Centre TEL: +44-61-273-3286
University of Manchester FAX: +44-61-274-3889
Oxford Road, Manchester UK
The University of Manchester runs many Apollo Domain/OS systems, primarily
for CAD/CASE work both for teaching and research, as well as many HP-UX
systems. My experience with the HP-UX systems has shown them not to be a
viable alternative to Domain/OS, and, therefore, I am extremely anxious that
OSF/1 WITH DOMAIN FEATURES be available on 700 series machines very soon.
******************************************************************************
Nicholas M Wosika - Senior Support Specialist
Honeywell Industrial Automation & Controls || Minneapolis, MN 55418
nwosika@ssdc.honeywell.com || (612) 782-7123
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Mike J. Chew - System Administrator
Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division Phoenix AZ 85036
chew@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com (602) 436-1311
Honeywell ATSD has 88 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10020s. I am *very*
concerned with all of these issues. Since I'm responsible for the budgeting
and acquisition of CAE/CAD workstation equipment in ATSD these issues have
a direct bearing on which platforms we'll use in the future. The DN10000's
were recent purchases and I'm not happy with it's limited life compared
to RISC workstations from HP's competitors.
******************************************************************************
-Darryl Bergstrom Apollo/Symbolics/News/Mail Administrator
-Honeywell SRC/SSDC IS Minneapolis, MN
-bergstr@ssdc.honeywell.com
-45 Apollos: 10 425's, 10 DN4000's, 1 DN3500, 24 DN3000's
******************************************************************************
Jeff O'Neil - Director Advanced Systems
ARCO Oil and Gas Company, Research & Technical Services
Plano, TX 75075 || (214) 754-3959 || jco@arco.com
On site we have 14 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s.
The HP/Apollo Dallas office is quite aware of my concerns on
these issues, many of which are reflected in this letter.
******************************************************************************
Willie Krongard Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems
wtk@gumby.cfsmo.honeywell.com
******************************************************************************