forrest@ucsbcsl.UUCP ( ) (10/19/85)
I wrote this a year ago because I wasn't happy with Jerry Pournelle's column in Byte. Since then I've become even more discusted by this egotistical, ignorant, hot-air machine. So, I thought I'd sent it again. What do you think? ucbvax!ucsbcsl!forrest Computing at Anarchy Acres by Jerry Richdudley Alas, here I am again sitting in front of my favorite computer, Alyuisious. Alyuisious is an S-100 based system running CP-M. It runs rings around all the competition. Next to Alyuisious sits Pantagruel, a real racehorse. Pantagruel doesn't run rings around anything except the closest fire hydrant. Pantagruel is my dog. Influencing People Alas, I just got a call from my good friend Mick Jagger, and then another from my good buddy Sister Teresa, and then another from my old pal Steve Jobs. You know, it's funny. I used to get calls from all these world famous celebrities to let me in on all the top gossip in the computer field. Now they call me up to make sure I haven't gone bananas. They say that anyone who gives names to all his computer toys is displaying schizo-nutso tendencies and should be closely watched. Wet Noodles Alas, but I digress. There's work to be done. I've received yet another version of Modula 2 the other and I've got to be able to say something witty, urbane, inconsequential, and probably misguided about it. Even if I can't think of anything I'll still say something about what an important, influential language Modula is. Gee, it's almost sold as well as UCSD Pascal. If only people would realize that my experience in writing programs that alphabetize the names of all my famous friends makes me an expert on programming languages then maybe people would go out and buy Modula. It's funny, the editors of Byte sure must have a low opinion of their readers since they actually let someone as unqualified as me write about things I know so little about. It's a good thing I've got my son, the college graduate, to act as my technical expert. Those people who think that it's a conflict of interest for me to promote products that the company he works for sells are just a bunch of Watergate-chasers. Major Malaise Alas, you're lucky I was able to send in my column this month. I almost couldn't because my trusty companion Lulu, the Laptop computer, broke down. I know for most of you when this happens you instantly start seeing dollar signs in front of your eyes because you know that getting your computer fixed is going to cost you bucks. Not me. I just call up the famous hardware or software designer that seems to be the best qualified to solve my problem. It doesn't matter that this person probably has better things to do than help a poor slob like me, but they know that having their name appear in my column will do wonders for their business. It never fails. By the way, don't believe the grumblers who say that having all this power makes my reviews a little skewed. You could probably get all your problems fixed too if you wrote a column in Byte. Le Petard Alas, that's all for this month. Next month I'll review MVS, that cute little operating system rumored to appear on IBM's newest PC, give you my impressions of every accounting package ever written, tell you how to write an ADA compiler in APL and a APL compiler in ADA, and maybe, if there's time, tell you about the great new science fiction book I've got planned. (Editor's Note: Jerry writes Science Fiction - literally)
oleg@birtch.UUCP (Oleg Kiselev x268) (11/02/85)
About time someone said a word about Jerry... Pournelle's reviews are, at best,
incompetent babblings of an over-blown egotist.
I was not too bothered by his mis-representation of CP/M and Macintosh
capabilities, but what really upset me was Pornelle's praise of AT&T 7300.
Maybe because I had a chance to play with it for a few days and as many of my
friends who had used 7300 found it an even worse product than 3b2.
This machine sports the slowest windowing system, the noisiest hard-disk,
and the slowest process/page swap of ANY UNIX micro I've seen. It does not
come with C compiler as a standard utility. Manuals are terrible. Screen layout
is unpleasant. A 1/2 inch corroded attemt at an pointing arrow can not even
move to all points on the screen! Just try moving a window. The mouse can roll
all the way to the edge of the screen, and window'll be in the middle of it!
All in all, AT&T 7300 makes Mac look like a real computer.
To treat 7300 as the best thing that happened to programmers since transistors
and full-screen editors is simply STUPID! I wonder if Jerry tried to
run Multiplan on it, or whatever word processor came with his machine.
The speed of responce I got on 7300 was TERRIBLE! There is something VERY
SICK about the machine and it got a GREAT REVIEW in Jerry's column.
If I had *ANY* respect for J. Pournelle, it's gone now!
--
Disclamer: My employers go to church every Sunday, listen to Country music,
and donate money to GOP. I am just a deviant.
----------------------------------+ Don't bother, I'll find the door,
"Only through a violent revolution| Oleg Kiselev.
can the existing order be pre- |...!{trwrb|scgvaxd}!felix!birtch!oleg
served..."-Perfect Student Union |...!{ihnp4|randvax}!ucla-cs!uclapic!oac6!olegwb6rqn@yojna1.UUCP (Brian Lloyd) (11/06/85)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MINDLESS DRIVEL *** This is in response to the article posted by Oleg Kiselev. I do not want to waste your time by repeating his article. I am not sure that you have fairly evaluated the 7300. I have used one for some time and I find that its performance is acceptable. First, you must have at least a megabyte of memory in the box, or the performance will suffer very badly. The reason for the apparent slow paging speed is that the disk swap partition resides with the root filesystem on the same, somewhat slow, disk. Every time you are forced to do a page swap, the disk must do a long seek. By adding more memory, you do not have to swap as often. This speeds up the system considerably. As for the speed of the mouse and the windowing software, solving the swapping speed problems will help greatly. Even if the windows are a bit slow, I enjoy being able to work in both the window and the shell environments. Having a multitasking OS that one can communicate with from the outside world, is a boon almost beyond price. Of the generally available personal computer products, including the IBM-PC family, the Apple family, and the CP/M world, I find the 7300 to be refreshingly different and usable. I agree with you that it is unfortunate that AT&T did not see fit to include the C compiler with with package, but it is understandable when you consider that AT&T's target market is that of the standard PC. I believe that it will shine as a UNIX programmers workstation and because of this, the lack of a bundled C compiler is shortsighted. You can still get the complete UNIX development environment, albeit at an additional cost. I just include the additional cost for the development software in price of the machine. Con- sidering the discounts that can be had on the 7300, it is still a "good deal" for someone wanting a personal UNIX development system. As for your comments on Jerry Pournelle, I feel that you are both correct and incorrect. You are correct in stating that Mr. Pournelle is egotistical and often uninformed. On that score he truely represents what he intends to represent -- the end user. I have to deal with egotistical uninformed users nearly every day. Jerry's columns help me to see thing from my customer's point of view. No, I do not perceive Jerry Pournelle as an expert, but then there are very few real experts in this world. Almost everyone who has ever written a line of code considers him/herself an "expert" programmer. 90% of these self-styled "experts" are sadly mistaken! Please, let us not have the pot calling the kettle black. Best Regards, Brian Lloyd ...![bellcore|cp1]!yojna1!wb6rqn
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (11/10/85)
When you rant about Jerry finding the 7300 to be such a great machine,
consider this: the man has never used a UNIX system of any sort for
any length of time before. If *your* standard of measurement was an
IBM-PC or "Zeke", wouldn't just about any UNIX box blow your socks off?
Instead of being insulted by his ignorance, rejoice in the thought that
he won't knock UNIX in his column any more. Hopefully.
--
Name: Peter da Silva
Graphic: `-_-'
UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter
IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peterksl@hou2e.UUCP (a hacker) (11/15/85)
If Jerry Pournelle has not had much experience with UNIX (as stated by Peter da Silva), why does he always say that UNIX is not a good choice of an operating system and also complicated (O.K., so I'm a UNIX fan) Indeed UNIX is not much complicated -- it's just full of features. The names also stand for things. But, Jerry Pournelle was ONLY excited for one month with his 7300 "Bellerphone", in the October issue. He has (according to himself) stopped using it (in the Noverber issue). Can you answer this Peter? hou2e!ksl
german@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (11/16/85)
I am also a big fan of Unix, but I recomend MS/PC-DOS about 90% of the time. Keep in mind that I am a PC consultant and deal mostly with IBM PCs/XTs/ATs. Why? 1.) Most people want to use the wide range of productivity software availble which will not yet run under Unix. 2.) Price is often a factor in favor of DOS. 3.) Try to do graphics under Xenix especially on the Enhanced Graphics Monitor or the Professional Graphics Monitor under Unix. All the software written for this is DOS based. 4.) Most of my users know people in their department who know something about DOS, but don't even know what Unix is. 5.) For a user of application program DOS is easier to cope with. I recomend Unix for software developers and people who want to do communications multi-tasking or multi-user applications.
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (11/18/85)
> If Jerry Pournelle has not had much experience with UNIX (as > stated by Peter da Silva), why does he always say that UNIX > is not a good choice of an operating system and also complicated Probably because he believes all the industry (psycho)analysts who tell him that UNIX is obsolete, etc... etc... etc... > (O.K., so I'm a UNIX fan) Indeed UNIX is not much complicated -- > it's just full of features. The names also stand for things. Agreed! If all you want to do is the things MS-DOS restricts you to it's no harder to use, and in fact probably simpler because you don't have to spend all your time re-organising your disks to make sure all your WordStar overlays are in the right place. > But, Jerry Pournelle was ONLY excited for one month with > his 7300 "Bellerphone", in the October issue. He has (according > to himself) stopped using it (in the Noverber issue). As I read the column he's run into a hardware problem. And he's also only stated that he's stopped using it as a terminal. -- Name: Peter da Silva Graphic: `-_-' UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter
oleg@birtch.UUCP (Oleg Kiselev) (12/03/85)
In article <445@graffiti.UUCP> peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >And he's also >only stated that he's stopped using it as a terminal. I don't blame him! Even tho' the font and the picture on 7300 are OK, the speed of screen operations is far inferior to most terminals and the machine is ***NOISY***!!!! Having spent quite some time with various super-micros and work- stations spinning their fans in my office I should be tolerant to their noise, right? But 7300 had a most improportionate noise level! The continual disk grinding and loud fans make it less than ideal workstation, and clearly mark it as a poor choice for "terminal only" use! -- Disclamer: My employers go to church every Sunday, listen to Country music, and donate money to GOP. I am just a deviant. +-------------------------------+ Don't bother, I'll find the door! | "VIOLATORS WILL BE TOAD!" | Oleg Kiselev. | Dungeon Police |...!{trwrb|scgvaxd}!felix!birtch!oleg --------------------------------+...!{ihnp4|randvax}!ucla-cs!uclapic!oac6!oleg