DCS05@RMC.CA (10/16/90)
Some Additions to Mark Krause' observations. Not supporting OSF-1 on the DN families was purely a marketting decision. HP admits that there are no technical reasons why OSF-1 would not run on these platforms. Supposedly there are huge financial costs involved in porting to the older (no - not older, current!) product line. No one, so far, has offered any details on what the cost to the consumer would be. I'm not much of a systems programmer so I find it difficult to swallow a huge incremental cost when both product lines are based on the same technology. Call me cynical but I figure that this decision is based on stimulating sales for the new product line. That's HP's perrogative - this is a free enterprise system. They will have to live with the results. In our case that will probably mean the cancellation of all DN product purchases. We will look at the 400 series instead. But, hey, if we need to buy new hardware to get OSF-1 maybe we should look at some RS6000's - they seem to have a lot of bang for the buck. WRT the death of SR9.7- Barbara Poppe did the survey of who was using what version. After the huge show of hands of those still relying on SR9.7 her next question was something along the lines of ' Who WANTS to be using SR9.7?'. I didn't see a single hand go up. It would seem that people are stuck at 9.7 for reasons other than personal preference. For some the reasons may be SR10's lust for disk and memory but for most the slow up has probably been the lack of support from 3rd party vendors. I know that Autotrol only went to official support of SR10 this summer. Will this slow up the end of support for SR9.7. Probably not. Definitely not unless HP gets lot's of feedback. For Willem Jan Withagen - The confusion on the 2 dates might be the date that SR9.7 goes off the price list (can't be ordered) which should be very soon, and the date after which they will not support it ( requests for bug fixes, etc) The support will not end until the spring. Steve Lloyd Network Administrator Royal Military College of Canada LloydS@rmc.ca (LloydS@rmc.bitnet)
goldfish@CONCOUR.CS.CONCORDIA.CA (-- Paul Goldsmith) (10/16/90)
Before you get out your hankies and start crying over HP's costs for
putting OSF onto an Apollo, the Apollo DN4500 was demonstrated running
MACH (which is the OSF kernel) at the Montreal Computer show. (I
didn't see it myself, however another analyst saw it there.) Once the
kernel runs, any other excuses for not putting the OS up are STRICTLY
MARKETING. If in fact Apollo/HP plans on stranding the owners of the
second most popular workstation out in "unsupported land" because they
refuse to market an operating system which has already been
demonstrated to run on these machines, then your purchasing agents
should consider protecting their future investments (and you) when
they plan their medium term acquisition strategies.
The same cost decisions which motivate HP to drop Domain OS should be
motivating you to protect yourself against manufacturers who don't
support their products. This is a knife which cuts two ways.
-- Paul Goldsmith
(goldfish) (514) 848-3031 <goldfish@concour.cs.concordia.ca>
(Shirley Maclaine told me there would be LIFETIMES like this)nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) (10/16/90)
In article <901015.16343798.030626@RMC.CP6> DCS05@RMC.CA writes: >OSF-1 would not run on these platforms. Supposedly there are huge financial >costs involved in porting to the older (no - not older, current!) product Ha, ha. I very strongly suspect that OSF/1 will be running on at least some of the DN machines before it runs on the HP ones - internally at Apollo at least. This is a nonsense decision. I give it about a quarter before they change their minds. The only question is whether anyone will be listening when they do. >HP's perrogative - this is a free enterprise system. They will have to >live with the results. In our case that will probably mean the >cancellation of all DN product purchases. We will look at the 400 series Exactly. Why would you buy a machine that has been announced as having only one more software release left for the rest of eternity? When they see what this does to the sales figures for the DNxxx maybe someone will wake up. Well. Now we know one thing for sure. HP didn't buy Apollo for the market share! -- Alphalpha Software, Inc. | motif-request@alphalpha.com nazgul@alphalpha.com |----------------------------------- 617/646-7703 (voice/fax) | Proline BBS: 617/641-3722 I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) (10/16/90)
In article <9010151904.aa17376@concour.cs.concordia.ca>, goldfish@CONCOUR.CS.CONCORDIA.CA (-- Paul Goldsmith) writes:
Before you get out your hankies and start crying over HP's costs for
putting OSF onto an Apollo, the Apollo DN4500 was demonstrated running
MACH (which is the OSF kernel) at the Montreal Computer show. (I
didn't see it myself, however another analyst saw it there.) Once the
kernel runs, any other excuses for not putting the OS up are STRICTLY
MARKETING.
I worked on the original port of Mach to Apollo hardware back in 1988.
Getting the basics (compiling and booting) is pretty easy. But the fact is
that "once the kernel runs" you've just barely started. All the support
costs are directly proportional to the number of different architectures you
want to support. And the number of different architectures is amazingly
high. Did you know that the dn3000 comes with two different MMUs? (One of
them is actually the dn3010 if you want to get picky). Every time a new
release comes out, Apollo has to beta test it on all the different
architectures. Add in the different display, memory, disk, and net options
and the number of permutations is unbelievable.
Marketing certainly goes into the equation, but there are in fact very real,
and very high, costs associated with supporting (as opposed to just
releasing) OSF on all the current Apollo hardware types.
I doubt that HP is planning to strand owners of the current products. By
the time HP drops support for Domain/OS, no one will be using Otters
(dn[34]xxx) any more, for the same reason that no one uses Terns (dn[46]60)
any more. It just won't be cost effective to keep them operating.
Of course, it would be really cool if somebody made Otter OSF available as
an unsupported product. I doubt that we'll see this.rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) (10/17/90)
Let me get this straight-- is somebody saying that HP/Apollo will not provide software upgrades past 10.3 even for my one-year old, expensive DN10000? That OSF stuff will not be supported in its place? So why do they think I would ever want to buy another processor for the 10k? Or anything else for that matter. Say it ain't so, or say it is so soon enough that I can pull back my purchase order.
reb@quintro.uucp (Roger E. Benz) (10/18/90)
In article <1990Oct16.064450.2850@alphalpha.com> nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes: >In article <901015.16343798.030626@RMC.CP6> DCS05@RMC.CA writes: >>OSF-1 would not run on these platforms. Supposedly there are huge financial >>costs involved in porting to the older (no - not older, current!) product >Ha, ha. I very strongly suspect that OSF/1 will be running on at least >some of the DN machines before it runs on the HP ones - internally at >Apollo at least. This is a nonsense decision. I give it about a >quarter before they change their minds. The only question is whether >anyone will be listening when they do. > >>HP's perrogative - this is a free enterprise system. They will have to >>live with the results. In our case that will probably mean the >>cancellation of all DN product purchases. We will look at the 400 series >Exactly. Why would you buy a machine that has been announced as having >only one more software release left for the rest of eternity? When >they see what this does to the sales figures for the DNxxx maybe someone >will wake up. > >Well. Now we know one thing for sure. HP didn't buy Apollo for the >market share! A question I have is why would anyone buy a new DNXXXX machine? The new 9000 series machines are cheaper and more upgradable then any DN series machine. Even with some upgrades its cheaper to buy new 9000 machine than to upgrade to DN5500's. I also wonder is HP going to supply OSF/1 on older 9000 series machines (3xx)? -- Roger E. Benz Glenayre/Quintron Phone = (217) 223-3211 One Quintron Way Quincy, IL UUCP: tiamat!quintro!reb@uunet or quintro!reb@lll-winken
rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) (10/18/90)
What is the reason for buying a new DNxx machine? Well, for one the
DN10000 is still a better number cruncher than the new line, especially
if it is programmed effectively (and I hope the new compilers do
better than the pitiful performance of 10.7p) As for upgradability,
the DN10k is fully upgradable at a reasonable cost (for universities
a board swap to the new double speed processor is about $6000, I think,
which puts it cheaper than getting the performance increase by buying
two to four SparcStations). (Memory and disk drives for the 10k are
ruinously expensive, and there is little or no third party market.
Wake up HP/Ap! This is the main sticking point in further sales, at
least to me). Anyway, if I were buying a machine right now,
maybe I'd look at Stardent or the IBM RISC series, but it still looks
to me like the 10k is a strong competitor. And consider this: You
can get in on the ground floor of a 10k at a university for about
$50k, and for purchases of around $15k per year (which you can
get relatively easily on individual grants) you can double to
quadruple your throughput each year by buying additional processor
boards or upgrading to faster boards. This is why I bought the
machine.
Despite my grumbling, basically the 10k has been very good for
my work, and I see some real performance improvements coming down
the line which make its performance advantages clearer. Thus,
I am very chagrined to hear the rumblings that HP may not support
further OS releases on the DN series.
.nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) (10/19/90)
For what it's worth, Unix Today's article on the ADUS conference was much more upbeat and said that Apollo would be providing new releases on the DNxxx machines indefinitely. What gives? -- Alphalpha Software, Inc. | motif-request@alphalpha.com nazgul@alphalpha.com |----------------------------------- 617/646-7703 (voice/fax) | Proline BBS: 617/641-3722 I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
pha@CAEN.ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Paul H. Anderson) (10/19/90)
In article <9010151904.aa17376@concour.cs.concordia.ca>, goldfish@CONCOUR.CS.CONCORDIA.CA (-- Paul Goldsmith) writes:
Before you get out your hankies and start crying over HP's costs for
putting OSF onto an Apollo, the Apollo DN4500 was demonstrated running
MACH (which is the OSF kernel) at the Montreal Computer show. (I
didn't see it myself, however another analyst saw it there.) Once the
kernel runs, any other excuses for not putting the OS up are STRICTLY
MARKETING.
I worked on the original port of Mach to Apollo hardware back in 1988.
Getting the basics (compiling and booting) is pretty easy. But the fact is
that "once the kernel runs" you've just barely started. All the support
costs are directly proportional to the number of different architectures you
want to support. And the number of different architectures is amazingly
high. Did you know that the dn3000 comes with two different MMUs? (One of
them is actually the dn3010 if you want to get picky). Every time a new
release comes out, Apollo has to beta test it on all the different
architectures. Add in the different display, memory, disk, and net options
and the number of permutations is unbelievable.
Marketing certainly goes into the equation, but there are in fact very real,
and very high, costs associated with supporting (as opposed to just
releasing) OSF on all the current Apollo hardware types.
I doubt that HP is planning to strand owners of the current products. By
the time HP drops support for Domain/OS, no one will be using Otters
(dn[34]xxx) any more, for the same reason that no one uses Terns (dn[46]60)
any more. It just won't be cost effective to keep them operating.
Of course, it would be really cool if somebody made Otter OSF available as
an unsupported product. I doubt that we'll see this.
Apollo has demonstrated OSF/1 on DN4500's at trade shows. The HP contributed
port to OSF includes support for the DN2500/DN3010/DN3500/DN4000 and DN4500.
Not to say that it is done and tested for all platforms, or anything, but an
awful lot of the work has already been done.
Furthermore, with pooled resources developing the kernel, the theory behind
OSF is that individual manufacturers won't have to re-invent the wheel simply
to come up with a robust, usable system (as Apollo did with Aegis - for good
reason at the time). Therefore, the total cost of offering the system on
a given platform will be substantially cheaper than offering Domain/OS on
a new platform, since the machine specific portion is smaller and better
defined.
Reasonably high level marketing people told us earlier this year that OSF
would be supported on DNxxxx series machines. The announcement at ADUS
indicates that they were lying to us. Independently of whether or not
this decision is good, customers don't like being lied to.
Yes, it costs money to test different variations of SW and HW, but that is
what we buy the machines for in the first place! If HP/Apollo can't support
what it sells, then I don't feel too badly about it losing the market share
it picked up when HP bought Apollo.
Paul Anderson
Disclaimer - If this is a flame, it is, as always, directed against
upper level management at HP/Apollo. For some damn-fool reason, I
thought it would be an improvement over the old Apollo upper level
management. I guess I was wrong.krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (10/19/90)
Actually, buying new HP 9000 series 400 machines is *not* always
less expensive than buying a DN3500/4500 or a DN2500 when you
figure in the cost of peripherals, I/O bus options, and add-on
memories. The stripped down 400dl is less expensive than a stripped
down mono-chrome DN3500, but a DN2500 is less expensive than the 400dl
and has an SCSI port (a $2000 upgrade from a 400dl to a 400t) and
less expensive memories.
If you are looking for a cheap seat for editing, debugging, CASE,
etc. try the following comparison:
16 MB RAM, 200 MB disk, 19" mono screen
DN2500 with 4MB, 19" screen ~ $4500
12 MB add-on PC SIMMS ~ $720 ($60/MB)
200 MB external Mac disk ~ $1200 (recent price, MacWeek)
=========
$6420
HP 9000 400t 8MB, 19" screen ~ $7000
8 MB add-on RAM, 3rd party $3775 (Martech, "Workstation" ad, 10/90)
*or* 8 MB add-on RAM, HP $4000
200 MB external Mac disk $1200
*or* 200 MB, HP internal disk ~ $2500
======
$11975 (3rd party, Mac disk)
#$13500 (HP)
Now HP does a lot more in terms of selling specially priced
bundled systems -- giving discounts if you buy a 400t with
their own disk and memory added in at the factory -- but it
only brings the cost down by about $1500 to $2000. The
bundling makes it *real* hard to do cost comparisons, because
small changes in system configuration can make big changes
in the price.
If you are looking for a color system instead of mono, a
DN3500 is still a better buy than a similarly configured
400t or 400s (why compare to a 400s? because that's the
only system that you can get a real I/O bus to plug your
existing 3rd party PC boards into!). Do you need a DOS
co-processor? Either you buy a DN3500/4500 (or my used
DN4000!) and add the board in, or you buy a 400s or 433s
(well, actually a 400s and an future CPU upgrade).
A monochrome 400s with a 300MB disk and 8MB RAM is about
$18,500 according to the bundled pricing I've got. A similar
DN3500 is $15,600. If you go with a 4 plane color, 15"
monitor on the DN3500, the price drops another $1000. If
you go with 3rd party memory for the 8MB of RAM, it
drops another $4000 (DataRam ~ $1700 vs HP ~ $5500).
In all these comparisons, the HP 9000 is much faster than
the corresponding DNxxxx, of course. But when you add up
the cost of a fully configured system, the DNxxxx is still
frequently less expensive. If you figure in the use of
3rd party RAM and disk, the DNxxxx can get a *lot* cheaper,
while the HP 9000 3rd party prices are still fairly close
to HP's list price.
-- David Krowitz
krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet
(in order of decreasing preference)krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (10/19/90)
Over a year and a half ago, just after HP had purchased Apollo, several people at a New England local users' group meeting were speculating what was going to become of the DN10000. I ventured forth the following observations: HP had HP-PA Apollo had PRISM maintaining two seperate product lines was expensive both in hardware design and in software support. HP bought Apollo, not vice-versa. The DN10000 was a dead-end. A regional marketing manager from Apollo (ie. Chelmsford, not an HP transplant) overheard the debate. She got up during her session and announced (to the best of her knowledge at the time -- I am not blaming her) that the DN10000 was a long-term viable product, and outlined how the current DN10000 would first receive a 2X CPU upgrade, and then a merged HP-PA/PRISM CPU upgrade which would be the path to the combined HP/Apollo product line. It sounded good at the time. The 2X CPU upgrade has still not been delivered. The merged HP-PA/PRISM CPU is not going to be developed. OSF will not be ported to any DN platform. The majority of the people I used to know and correspond with in Chelmsford have left the company. Workstations, in general, have about a 3 year lifetime from product introduction to the end of production. Software obsolecense begins about 3.5 ro 4 years after the product introduction, and becomes a near certainty within 6 to 12 months of the end of the hardware production. Apollo's compilers stopped producing code for DN460/660 CPU's with the introduction of SR10.0 nearly 3 years ago due to compiler bugs. These bugs are supposedly fixed in the SR10.3 compiler suite (the CR1.0 compiler releases). At the time that SR10.0 was released, our DN460/660's purchased in 1985 were about 3 to 3.5 years old, and they had been made obsolete by the DN3000 only 18 months after their purchase. Such is the workstation market. You buy a machine with the expectation of getting 18 months of good use out of it, another 18 months of ok-but-not-great work out of it, and then 18 months of struggling to keep it alive. Then you throw it out. -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)
rwilkie@APOLLO.COM (Richard Wilkie) (10/20/90)
Hello,
I wanted to address some of the issues that have been raised on this news
group over the past few weeks. I hope to clear up some of the confusion
that has come about as a result of the ADUS conference and other recent
events.
I also encourage people to continue to press HP on their favorite
issues - your words really are being heard and we are VERY interested in
meeting your needs.
1) Domain/OS Releases:
----------------------
Support Policy:
Currently we support SR9.7, SR10.2 and SR10.3. The general rule
is 'the current release (10.3) plus one release back (10.2)'.
However, we are aware of the number of user's who are still at
SR9.7 and so we will continue to support SR9.7 until May 1991.
Overall Release Plans:
We are currently planning SR11.0 and SR11.1. It is our intention
to release a new revision of Domain/OS every 9 to 12 months. This
puts SR11 sometime next summer/fall with SR11.1 coming out in the
middle of 1992. SR11 and FUTURE revisions of Domain/OS WILL be
supported on ALL SAU7,8,9,10,11 & 12 nodes (DN3000 and later).
We have NO PLANS TO STOP SUPPORTING DOMAIN/OS on the DN series
equipment - including the DN10000 and the upcoming DN10000 upgrade.
We will continue to have Domain/OS relesaes (11.2...) 9-12 months
apart.
SR10.2 Specifics:
This release is currently supported on ALL DN series machines
that run the SR10 line - DN300 and later.
It is also supported (via PSK7) on the Series 9000 machines.
It will continue to be supported until SR11.0 is released.
SR10.3 Specifics:
The current release of Domain/OS is SR10.3. It contains a large
number of fixes to problems in SR10.2 and a significant amount of
new functionality. It runs on ALL DN series machines supported by
previous SR10 based releases - DN300 and later. It also runs on
the new Series 9000 (400DL, 400S, 400T) workstations. HOWEVER,
the newer machines do not support the additional processes (still
at 64) like the other node types. The increase in the number of
processes WILL be available when PSK8 is released around Q2'91.
SR10.3 will be supported until SR11.1 is released.
SR11.0 Specifics:
As stated above, SR11.0 will be released next year for all node
types in the SAU7-12 families. It is mainly a 'standards' release.
It will contain support for POSIX 1003.1 & 1003.2, X/Open XPG3,
X11R4, ANSI C, Motif... It will be the basis for migration to
HPs OSF offering. Programs written to the standards supported
by SR11 will be source code compatible with HP OSF. Our goal
is to release as much of the OSF DCE as possible with SR11.0.
What cannot be delivered as part of SR11.0 will be part of SR11.1.
SR11.1 Specifics:
SR11.1 will include all PSKs released on the SR11.0 line.
Including complete support for the OSF DCE and the OSF UE.
2) X11 Support:
SR10.2 and SR10.3 contain a version of X11 with 'share mode'
support for the DM. This support will continue with the SR11
set of releases. There is a recent PSK (PSK5) to help with the
performance of X11 on SR1of X11 on SR10.2. Those performance
enhancements have been included in SR10.3.
There will be a PSK available in Q2 for SR10.3 support of X11R4.
The R4 version of X11 will NOT be share mode. There will, instead,
be a 'hot key' that will enable users to go between X11 and the
Apollo Display Manager. This version will be available on future
OS revisions beginning with SR11.0.
The decision to NOT support X11R4 on the DVS has been changed.
X11R4 WILL be available on the DN4500 DVS. We are still re-evaluating
the DN10000 X11R4 support decision. I hope to give you more
information in the near future.
3) OSF:
Kernel:
HP has announced that it's strategic Operating System Kernel is OSF.
We have committed that it will run on the Series 9000 (400DL,S,T) nodes
as well as the future PA-RISC platforms. The first release of OSF
will be available in late 1991.
We have heard the interest in support of the OSF kernel on the current
DN series nodes. There have been statements that it is already running
on the DN4500 and has been at various shows in the past and should
not require much more work to make it a product. While it is true that
we have demonstrated the feasibility on OSF on the DN4500 it should
come as no suprise to people in operating system product development
that a port of the kernel is just the tip of the iceberg. Support of
the OSF kernel on the DN series would require large efforts for device
drivers for all the peripherals available. Also, the support requirements
in marketing, service, technical publications, ... add to the effort.
I don't mention this to justify the decision, only to inform you
of the rational behind it.
DCE:
The OSF DCE will be ported and supported on ALL platforms running the
SR11 family. This is the best method of operating a heterogenius
network - and we are committed to making it available on ALL our operating
systems.
4) Use of the Internet:
We are investigating what support will be given to the use of Internet
for sending/receiving information to/from HP. I expect decisions and
implementations of those decisions shortly (couple of weeks).
5) mkapr going away
As I said above, we are interested in providing our customers with the
hardware and software they want - so - mkapr will be supported in all
future Domain/OS releases.
I am sure I have not answered all issues nor have I answered these in sufficient
depth for many of you. Please ask and I will answer your questions as soon
as possible.
thanx for your time,
Rich Wilkie
Manager, Software Release Engineering
Hewlett-Packard, Apollo Systems Divisionwjw@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (10/22/90)
I've not been very nice in previous messages shouting at HP, so I'll try to be a little nicer this time; First of all, this is what I would call more then sensible use of the Internet. It is not a commercial speech, give or take a few items :-) In article <9010191929.AA11689@xuucp.ch.apollo.com> rwilkie@APOLLO.COM (Richard Wilkie) writes: ^^^^^^^ Is this an official message from HP/Apollo. Perhaps it is wise to state so, since other HP/apollo employees also use the INternet to ventilate their thoughts. ( Your title sound official enough anyways) >I also encourage people to continue to press HP on their favorite >issues - your words really are being heard and we are VERY interested in >meeting your needs. Nice to hear that not all efforts are wasted in this area. Especially since it took al lot of time from the people who started the discussion. Thanks again to Jim Richardson. >1) Domain/OS Releases: >---------------------- > SR9.7 and so we will continue to support SR9.7 until May 1991. Sounds nice and I've finally convinced my boss that he should be prepared to lose certain packages which we run for VLSI design. But how about all those who are not this fortunate, 2 months extra is not all that much. [Everybody is telling us to update, but this would cost us about 50% of our annual budget. The 50% would go to HP/apollo service contracts. (I'm not saying that HP-service is expencive, our budget are just plain low :-{ )] > We have NO PLANS TO STOP SUPPORTING DOMAIN/OS on the DN series > equipment - including the DN10000 and the upcoming DN10000 upgrade. > We will continue to have Domain/OS relesaes (11.2...) 9-12 months > apart. Now if I read this right, this would mean that HP/Apollo is going to support two main streams of OS. The OSF line which it is compelled to by takeing part in to OSF organisation?, and DOMAIN/OS for us 'poor suckers' who are still using DNxxxxx. The question is: Is this an 'everlasting' promisse? Will there be an DN/OS 12? 13? ..... > SR11 will be source code compatible with HP OSF. Our goal > is to release as much of the OSF DCE as possible with SR11.0. You caught me on this one! What is OSF DCE? I know a DCE in communications, but that does not fit here. And furhter on in the text, what's OSF UE? >2) X11 Support: > There will be a PSK available in Q2 for SR10.3 support of X11R4. > The R4 version of X11 will NOT be share mode. Well all the nice remarks we've made about wanting a shared X11R4 server has gone down the drain? So much for listening to the audience !-| There will, instead, > be a 'hot key' that will enable users to go between X11 and the > Apollo Display Manager. I'll put it mildly, is better than nothing. >3) OSF: > > We have heard the interest in support of the OSF kernel on the current > DN series nodes. There have been statements that it is already running > on the DN4500 and has been at various shows in the past and should > not require much more work to make it a product. See my previous remark about supporting DOMAIN/OS and OSF. > > DCE: > The OSF DCE will be ported and supported on ALL platforms running the > SR11 family. This is the best method of operating a heterogenius > network - and we are committed to making it available on ALL our operating > systems. Does this imply a client-server model, or will it be more a peer-peer model like it is used in the DOMAIN/OS? >4) Use of the Internet: > We are investigating what support will be given to the use of Internet > for sending/receiving information to/from HP. I expect decisions and > implementations of those decisions shortly (couple of weeks). The repsonse of the open letter promissed it by november first, so we're all waiting. >5) mkapr going away > As I said above, we are interested in providing our customers with the > hardware and software they want - so - mkapr will be supported in all > future Domain/OS releases. Oke, it's not nice but this is going to sound like a flame. The occurence made me real mad, and this was the extra drop. I'm not so shure that HP/Apollo wants to know what it's users want. I'll give an example: We're using the DPCI package for connecting PC's to Apollo's in a nice fashion and using Apollo stuff. (instead of NFS, telnet,....) When I mailed an APR with some suggestions form improvement, the general answer was: The package is functioning according spec's so there's no bug! Even a complaint about the terminal emulator (BUG) got this value. (Or the next release was the last version of the package, which means another package is going to die! ) Heck NO, don't you folks read the APR's. I even stated at the top of the APR that it was about 'enhancements'. ( APR no: 5B542505, 5B546E9B, 5B54094E ) Willem Jan Withagen Eindhoven University of Technology DomainName: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10 BITNET: ELEBWJ@HEITUE5.BITNET P.O. 513 Tel: +31-40-473401 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands
nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) (10/23/90)
In article <853@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl> wjw@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) writes: >You caught me on this one! What is OSF DCE? I know a DCE in communications, >but that does not fit here. And furhter on in the text, what's OSF UE? Distributed Computing Environment, aka. NCS + X.500 + Andrew File System + PC/NFS.... User Environment, aka. Motif. >> There will be a PSK available in Q2 for SR10.3 support of X11R4. >> The R4 version of X11 will NOT be share mode. >Well all the nice remarks we've made about wanting a shared X11R4 server >has gone down the drain? So much for listening to the audience !-| > There will, instead, >> be a 'hot key' that will enable users to go between X11 and the >> Apollo Display Manager. >I'll put it mildly, is better than nothing. Practically speaking I'm impressed that this much will be done. If you want to put pressure on I think it is best put where there are actually resources and desire to do something. How about a DM-like editor (or even a DM-mode in Emacs), DM keyboard mode in the Korn Shell. Pick your favorite DM functions and let Apollo know that you want to see those functions supported under X, on the OSF/1 product, and maybe even fed back onto the net or to OSF in source form. That (I hope) might produce results. Really, if you want this stuff - say so. Look at it from HP's point of view. They don't the DM from a fried egg. As far as they know windowing started with X and a window system is something you run from your shell after you log in. They have very little concept that there is a technology here that is worthwhile. Things like named window groups, invisible windows, a window-manager langage - that's all unknown. If you want them to continue it - tell them. And frankly I'd find a modified version of Mwm that had DM functionality much more useful than a DM hot-key in the long run - particularly if I can use it on multiple platforms. -kee -- Alphalpha Software, Inc. | motif-request@alphalpha.com nazgul@alphalpha.com |----------------------------------- 617/646-7703 (voice/fax) | Proline BBS: 617/641-3722 I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
lampi@polari.UUCP (Michael Lampi) (10/24/90)
In article <9010191532.AA20967@richter.mit.edu> krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) writes: >Over a year and a half ago, just after HP had purchased Apollo, several [.....] > >The 2X CPU upgrade has still not been delivered. At ADUS this was announced as 'coming shortly' (A real date was mentioned, but I forget when.) >The merged HP-PA/PRISM CPU is not going to be developed. At ADUS this was announced as coming in 1.5 to 2 years. >OSF will not be ported to any DN platform. At ADUS HP/Apollo felt a LOT of heat from users on this, even though HP said that they would support the OSF DCE on DN3500, etc., platforms. Just not OSF itself. >The majority of the people I used to know and correspond with in >Chelmsford have left the company. Things change when companies merge. This can be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint. In any event, it is up to us to make sure that things get better (via our response) - feedback is vital! > >Workstations, in general, have about a 3 year lifetime from product >introduction to the end of production. Software obsolecense begins >about 3.5 ro 4 years after the product introduction, and becomes a [....] >after their purchase. Such is the workstation market. You buy a >machine with the expectation of getting 18 months of good use out >of it, another 18 months of ok-but-not-great work out of it, and >then 18 months of struggling to keep it alive. Then you throw it >out. > > > -- David Krowitz Of course, the introduction of the '5500' upgrade, and its subsequent 'obsolescence' 4 or 5 months later is rather absurd. One thing that has been prevalent in this thread is the statement that there will be no further releases of Domain after 10.3. This is NOT what I heard! Rather, 10.3 is the last release to talk to 9.7.X systems, which is in keeping with HP/Apollo's policy of supporting the two most current major versions of the operating system. SR 11 will be out next year, and there are (so I am told) plans for an SR 12. Anyway, we need better clarification of all these issues on the net by appropriate people at HP Michael Lampi
lampi@polari.UUCP (Michael Lampi) (10/24/90)
Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: MDL Corporation (206) 643-7333 Keywords: ADUS DN10K OSF upgrades The summary says it all.
system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) (10/25/90)
In article <9010191929.AA11689@xuucp.ch.apollo.com> rwilkie@APOLLO.COM (Richard Wilkie) writes: >2) X11 Support: > X11R4 WILL be available on the DN4500 DVS. We are still re-evaluating > the DN10000 X11R4 support decision. I hope to give you more > information in the near future. What about the standard AT bus 8-plane colour graphics (same hardware as DNxxxx) on a DN10000 - will that run SR11 X11R4? BTW, we abandoned forever any thoughts of a DVS upgrade when I heard at ADUS the long lifetime that product had: available in early '90, declared unsupported in Oct '90. We run X exclusively, and a system without X11R4/Motif is a boat anchor. We have 5 Apollo boat anchors :-(. -- Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca Tel: (416) 978-7094 Fax: (416) 978-8775
krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (10/25/90)
Kee, here's a question for you (since you were in the graphics group at Chelmsford) ... How do existing GPR and GMR programs works in an X-only evironment (assuming that there are no PAD_$ calls in them)? Do frame, direct, and borrow mode graphics work in an X environment from GPR and GMR? == Dave