FERGUSON@TMASL.EXXON.COM (04/24/89)
I've got an idea! Let's all start flaming on IBM, instead of Sun or Apollo! I hate IBM PC's minis, mainframes, and big companies (this one, at least) seem to be infested with them. The software, graphics, and general ease of use is lousy! With Apollos, Suns, Mac's, and even (what?!) Amigas, why would anyone think of IBM as a choice? So how come IBM is called Big Blue? Hope that distracted some attention... Scott
ami@suntops.UUCP (CSD) (04/25/89)
Yes kids, that's right! She's back... It's the... SUN EMPLOYEE FROM HELL!!!!!!! Just to comment on someone's posting about flaming IBM, I am reading a book called "Who's Afraid of Big Blue???". It's a really great book about the ascent and decline of IBM. Anyone else read it? It even mentions Apollo as influencing the decline of IBM (:) :) :) :) :)) Amester
jps@wucs1.wustl.edu (James Sterbenz) (04/27/89)
In article <8904242133.AA16384@umix.cc.umich.edu> FERGUSON@TMASL.EXXON.COM writes: > >I've got an idea! Let's all start flaming on IBM, instead of Sun or Apollo! >I hate IBM PC's minis, mainframes, and big companies (this one, at least) >seem to be infested with them. The software, graphics, and general ease of use ^^^^^^^^^^^ >is lousy! With Apollos, Suns, Mac's, and even (what?!) Amigas, why would >anyone think of IBM as a choice? So how come IBM is called Big Blue? Of course, we all know that Unix and associated tools belongs at the top of the list of "easy to use" operating systems. I didn't see any smileys, but assumed them anyway, since you didn't back the flame up with specifics. What we really need is less flaming, and more positive discussions backed up with substantive information. >Hope that distracted some attention... Possibly, but on the other hand it might just start another flame thread (but clearly not as much as if you'd said it in comp.sys.ibm :-). -- James Sterbenz Computer and Communications Research Center Washington University in St. Louis 314-726-4203 INTERNET: jps@wucs1.wustl.edu UUCP: wucs1!jps@uunet.uu.net
bhv@igloo.Scum.COM (Bronis Vidugiris) (04/27/89)
In article <8904242133.AA16384@umix.cc.umich.edu> FERGUSON@TMASL.EXXON.COM writes:
]
]I've got an idea! Let's all start flaming on IBM, instead of Sun or Apollo!
]I hate IBM PC's minis, mainframes, and big companies (this one, at least)
]seem to be infested with them. The software, graphics, and general ease of use
]is lousy! With Apollos, Suns, Mac's, and even (what?!) Amigas, why would
]anyone think of IBM as a choice? So how come IBM is called Big Blue?
]
]Hope that distracted some attention...
]
]Scott
I've had the misfortune to have to use IBM mainframes, so I agree thoroughly
with Scott. What do I dislike about IBM software? Well, I could pick on
TSO and JCL - but mercifully, I have forgotton most of what I had to learn
about that OS, and that misbegotten son-of-an-assembler turned into a
'language'. I might also mention the joys of EBCDIC, but I'd rather not.
It's really more fair to pick on IBM for their current offerings, such as
CMS. Relatively speaking, (to TSO, that is) this is not a bad OS. However,
it still lacks any concept of hierarchical directory structure, follows a
weird convention of seperating the components of filenames by spaces which
prevents any reasonable parsing of a filename EXCEPT by ALWAYS specifying
all three components (Filename FIletype and Disk). There are, of course,
still mutiple 'formats' of files, so that if one gives a fortran program
a 'variable record' format file, one can get the highly explanatory error
message 'Premeature EOF on FT06F001 - buffer contents are - standard fixup
taken, execution continuing'. And watching a relatively new user who has
attempted to use the system without thoroughly reading the manual is always
entertaining. Eventually, the user will hit the 'break' key to interrupt
some long output - not realizing that this will put him into CP mode.
The only error message available from CP is CP ?. He probably won't realize
that hitting the break key again will get him out of this mode - so he'll
have to yell for help.
Anyway, to try and maintain a small amount of relavance to this newsgroup,
I'll mention that the Apollo workstations are a much, much, much friendlier
environment than any IBM mainframe. Now, if they would only fix the fact
that allocating more than 270k - odd bytes of stack trashes the OS, things
would be just peachy :-). [Or, maybe this has been fixed in SR10 - half
a :-) - it might really HAVE been fixed for all I know]. Well, at least
(as near as I can tell) one can't crp on another node and trash IT'S os -
that's something, I guess.
--
bhv@igloojohn@hpdslab.HP.COM (John Fereira) (04/28/89)
>I didn't see any smileys, but assumed them anyway, since you didn't back the >flame up with specifics. He didn't need any. Did you look at his return address. <8904242133.AA16384@umix.cc.umich.edu> FERGUSON@TMASL.EXXON.COM writes: ^^^^^ >>Hope that distracted some attention... > >Possibly, but on the other hand it might just start another flame thread >(but clearly not as much as if you'd said it in comp.sys.ibm :-). Still not as much as he would get if he posted *anything* to misc.consumers using that address. -- John Fereira "It's raining cats and dogs here john%hp-ptp@hplabs.hp.com ...I just stepped in a poodle"