gtwibell@cix.compulink.co.uk (Geoff Twibell) (01/25/91)
I may soon have a chance to buy an Apollo Domain 3000 workstation for something around the UK equivalent of 600 or 700 dollars, and need to know if this a good buy or not. I know nothing of UNIX and the hardware it runs on (being a DOS user) but welcome a chance to learn. The system in question has no floppy but there's a tape drive. The monitor is 15" colour, there's a mouse and I'm told it runs stand-alone, so presumably has a hard disk too. It has had a recent memory upgrade (4Mb to 8Mb ?) and comes with about two yards of manuals. It's currently configured as a CAD/CAE system, with Redac VISULA software loaded (plus another two yards of manuals). There appears to be ports aplenty, including a BNC (Ethernet?) connector. Is it worth the asking price? Can I use standard PC peripherals (ie printers, modems) with it? Will it take standard PD/Shareware (eg GNU)? Is there still an active Apollo user group, maybe in the UK? Anything I should specifically check before deciding whether to purchase? Thanks in anticipation. Geoff T.
steve@archone.tamu.edu (Steve Rikli) (02/02/91)
In article <memo.65027@cix.compulink.co.uk> gtwibell@cix.compulink.co.uk (Geoff Twibell) writes: >I may soon have a chance to buy an Apollo Domain 3000 >workstation for something around the UK equivalent of 600 or >700 dollars, and need to know if this a good buy or not. > >The system in question has no floppy but there's a tape drive. >The monitor is 15" colour, there's a mouse and I'm told it >runs stand-alone, so presumably has a hard disk too. It has >had a recent memory upgrade (4Mb to 8Mb ?) and comes with >about two yards of manuals. It's currently configured as a >CAD/CAE system, with Redac VISULA software loaded (plus >another two yards of manuals). There appears to be ports >aplenty, including a BNC (Ethernet?) connector. > >Is it worth the asking price? Can I use standard PC >peripherals (ie printers, modems) with it? Will it take >standard PD/Shareware (eg GNU)? Anything I should >specifically check before deciding whether to purchase? I hate to be the purveyor of "me too" posts, but we have an opportunity to acquire 6 Apollo 3000's of various configurations in exchange for some PC hardware. Never having dealt with the things before, I would just like to have some basic info about the machine, vis: - what kind of processor(s) they have (68030? '020? other?) - what flavor of unix they use (BSD?, System V?, proprietary?) And just general comments about the overall quality and usefulness of the things. If you've personally used them, some brief description of the applications you were using would be appreciated. Thnx in advance. -- || steve@archone.tamu.edu ||| Steve Rikli, Assistant System Administrator || || srr2632@rigel.tamu.edu ||| Visualization Lab, College of Architecture || || ||| Texas A&M University || || (409) 845-3465 ||| College Station, TX 77843 ||
thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) (02/04/91)
> In article <memo.65027@cix.compulink.co.uk> gtwibell@cix.compulink.co.uk (Geoff Twibell) writes: > >I may soon have a chance to buy an Apollo Domain 3000 > >workstation for something around the UK equivalent of 600 or > >700 dollars, and need to know if this a good buy or not. Doesn't sound bad. It's certainly not too far out of line. Of course, it does depend on what you expect to get for your money. This is not a top-of-the line system. I believe Apollo (over)-rated it at 1.5 MIPS, but it is roughly a 1 MIP box. Software will probably be your biggest pain, since most Apollo s/w is either (A) expensive, (B) requires a faster node, or (C) both. > >The system in question has no floppy but there's a tape drive. > >The monitor is 15" colour, there's a mouse and I'm told it > >runs stand-alone, so presumably has a hard disk too. It has > >had a recent memory upgrade (4Mb to 8Mb ?) and comes with > >about two yards of manuals. Tape drive is probably better, from a backup point of view. Besides, who wants floppies? The color monitor is okay if you aren't a CAD/ workstation type. It has a resolution of 'only' 1024x800, either 4 or 8 planes, depending on the controller. > >It's currently configured as a > >CAD/CAE system, with Redac VISULA software loaded (plus > >another two yards of manuals). There appears to be ports > >aplenty, including a BNC (Ethernet?) connector. It will have at least a graphics port, a keyboard port (mouse plugs into keyboard), a serial port (rs232), and the ethernet port (tranceiver or BNC probably). It may also have a ring controller port and a parallel port. You can buy these if it doesn't have them (and more serial ports, and this, that and the rest). However, controller boards aren't cheap. > >Is it worth the asking price? Can I use standard PC > >peripherals (ie printers, modems) with it? Will it take > >standard PD/Shareware (eg GNU)? Anything I should > >specifically check before deciding whether to purchase? As I said, probably isn't too bad. Partly depends on the disk size. As a standalone, I'd insist on 300MB of disk, 'cause I'm a pig. (That's one thing to check -- it could theoretically be 70MB (BAD).) Many GNU products seem to build, but there are always 'gotchas'. (Often, the s/w has #if blocks for Apollo, Sun, etc. that will help.) The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Domain/OS _IS_NOT_UNIX_!!!! You can run bsd4.3 and/or sys5.3 unix, but they are ports, and the whole system is a kernel of a different flavor. If you insist on pure Unix, do not get this system. If you like a good, quality, (proprietary) O/S, this is it (my opinion). I started off being a Unix freak, and rapidly came to the conclusion that Domain/OS was _FAR_FAR_FAR_ superior. It ain't Unix, though. > - what kind of processor(s) they have (68030? '020? other?) 68020 w/ 68881 coprocessor (15MHz???) > - what flavor of unix they use (BSD?, System V?, proprietary?) Yes. If this is an sr9.7 node, the O/S is Aegis. You can buy the Domain/IX package to layer on top. This gives a unix-like O/S that is really NOT unix. If this is an sr10.x node, the O/S is Domain/OS. Domain/OS consists of the proprietary Aegis, a port of BSD 4.3 Unix, and a port of SysV.3 Unix. The Unix is not quite like real Unix, but it looks like it to a user. Remember though that it's still on top of a proproetary kernel. The underlying structure is NOT Unix. There are inode equivalents, but they aren't quite the same; the registry is completely different (although /etc/passwd exists as a read-only object); /dev/kmem doesn't exist in any fashion. > And just general comments about the overall quality and > usefulness of the things. The biggest 'plus' for Domain/OS and the Apollo workstations is inter- workstation computing. A node by itself is like a day without sunshine. (Note that I meant inter-APOLLO-workstation computing.) > If you've personally used them, > some brief description of the applications you were using > would be appreciated. We use Mentor Graphics CAE tools. In addition, we do our own tool development, using the compilers, debuggers, etc. Since they started out w/ Aegis here, people haven't complained about the lack of Unix -- we've complained about the disappearance of Aegis! One final note. A DN3000 will not be speedy w/ the newer O/S's. It will not have OSF ported to it (at last word). It is fairly slow as an X server (both for the display-only and for the programs themselves). > Thnx in advance. You're welcome as an afterthought. :-) -- jt -- John Thompson Honeywell, SSEC Plymouth, MN 55441 thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com As ever, my opinions do not necessarily agree with Honeywell's or reality's. (Honeywell's do not necessarily agree with mine or reality's, either)