prashant@pinocchio.encore.com (Prashant Dholakia) (11/10/89)
>From: como@max.bnl.gov (Andrew T. Como) > Has anyone heard when the release of Umax4.3 is going to >be out. It was due in October and I have heard nothing yet. > And how about NFS client? I have been waiting a year for it Umax 4.3 is currently in beta test at 11 sites. We still have a few issues to resolve. We will release the OS as soon as we resolve these issues to our satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the beta sites. Client NFS is also in beta test at 6 of the 11 Umax 4.3 beta sites. Client NFS (in fact, complete NFS) will be available with the Umax 4.3 release. >From: tperala@UB.D.UMN.EDU (Tim Perala) >I think that this mailing-list/newsgroup would be an appropriate >forum for Encore to keep their current and prospective clients >up to date on things. Encore is currently making some major >changes in its customer service logistics, and it is sometimes >difficult to answers to questions of this nature. >I am not faulting Encore's customer service. I think that considering >the recent increase in the size of their operation (assimilation of >Gould) that things are going well. >I know that people "in the know" at Encore read this stuff, in fact >they are quick to defend Encore and to answer questions. I guess >I would like to see them take on a more proactive role and try to >use this forum to diseminate information (without doing commercials >for Encore, of course). Good suggestion. It is our intention to keep our customers well informed at all times. We did this at the recent users group meeting in Miami and we've done this at past Usenix conferences. >Hey Encore, when will there be an ANSI C compiler for UMAX4.X? This is scheduled for Q1, 1990. -- Prashant Dholakia Prashant
george@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (George M. Jones) (11/10/89)
prashant@pinocchio.encore.com (Prashant Dholakia) writes: >From: como@max.bnl.gov (Andrew T. Como) Good suggestion. It is our intention to keep our customers well informed at all times. We did this at the recent users group meeting in Miami and we've done this at past Usenix conferences. So how about posting a summary of items covered at the user meeting for those of us who did not attend. Anybody here besides encore have notes from the meeting that they could enlighten the rest of us with ? >Hey Encore, when will there be an ANSI C compiler for UMAX4.X? This is scheduled for Q1, 1990. GCC is available and works quite nicley...of course it does not have the parallel programming extantions that the Encore/Greenhills compiler does (-q ext=parallel). You can pick it up from us via anonymous ftp or uucp. Let me know if you wnat instructions. ---George Jones OSU Computer & Inf. Science 2036 Neil Ave.,Columbus,Ohio 43210. 614-292-7325 george@cis.ohio-state.edu or ...!osu-cis!george X windows. Flaky and built to stay that way. -- OSU Computer & Inf. Science 2036 Neil Ave.,Columbus,Ohio 43210. 614-292-7325 george@cis.ohio-state.edu or ...!osu-cis!george X windows. A mistake carried out to perfection.
clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover) (11/11/89)
In article <10335@encore.Encore.COM>, prashant@pinocchio.encore.com (Prashant Dholakia) writes: > Umax 4.3 is currently in beta test at 11 sites. We still have > a few issues to resolve. We will release the OS as soon as we resolve > these issues to our satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the beta > sites. > ARRGH!!!!!! ARRGH!!!!!! ARRGH!!!!!! ARRGH!!!!!! ARRGH!!!!!! <<Flame to 75%>> My sales-creature assured me that UMAX 4.3 was released mid-October and I was expecting my tapes & manuals. DAMMNIT!! This is TWICE that Encore has missed a release date on UMAX 4.3 that I know of. I don't mind waiting for a throughly tested and debugged release (well I really do because our Encore is the only UNIX system here that isn't running NFS - but I'll live with it), but I really would appreciate BEING TOLD that release dates have slipped - I have been waiting to do some heavy duty system work until I was installing the new OS. > Client NFS is also in beta test at 6 of the 11 Umax 4.3 beta > sites. Client NFS (in fact, complete NFS) will be available with > the Umax 4.3 release. Good. > >From: tperala@UB.D.UMN.EDU (Tim Perala) > > >I am not faulting Encore's customer service. I think that considering > >the recent increase in the size of their operation (assimilation of > >Gould) that things are going well. <<Flame to 104%>> Well, I AM faulting Encore Customer Service!! As best that I can tell, the acquisition of Gould knocked Encore off balance and it's still staggering around months later. It took 5 phone calls just to find out the PHONE NUMBER of our sales rep a couple of weeks ago. I do NOT appreciate having to find out through outside channels what is going on with Encore software. We took a big risk buying our MultiMax, a decision that I still have to defend (though I did not make it) - a defense which is harder to raise when MY fustration level is this high. <<Flame off>> I hope that Encore will listen and contribute to this newsgroup so that we know what is going on. Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas clyde@emx.utexas.edu; ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!clyde Tip #268: Don't feel insecure or inferior! Remember, you're ORGANIC!! You could win an argument with almost any rock!
rhealey@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (Rob Healey) (11/11/89)
In article <73835@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> George M. Jones <george@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >GCC is available and works quite nicley...of course it does not have the >parallel programming extantions that the Encore/Greenhills compiler does >(-q ext=parallel). You can pick it up from us via anonymous ftp or uucp. >Let me know if you wnat instructions. On a related subject near and dear to my heart: HAS ANYBODY TWEEKED GDB3.3 SO IT WILL WORK UNDER UMAX NFS 3.3.20 OR HIGHER. Something in the COFF reading area doesn't work and you can't access source code lines, variables or anything else useful in source level debugging. To be blunt: sdb sucks rocks. It would be nice to have a working version of gdb on the Encore. I've looked at coffread.c but my COFF experience isn't sufficiant to figure out what exactly is going wrong and where it's going wrong. -Rob Healey #include <std/disclaimers.h>
dcourte@thor.wright.edu (Dale Emery Courte,040P Lib. Annex,873-4030,) (11/14/89)
From article <20754@ut-emx.UUCP>, by clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover): > > Well, I AM faulting Encore Customer Service!! As best that I can tell, the > acquisition of Gould knocked Encore off balance and it's still staggering > around months later. It took 5 phone calls just to find out the PHONE NUMBER > of our sales rep a couple of weeks ago. > Whew! This group has been so quiet I thought I was the only one who was concerned about this. We apparently lost our sales rep, and the closest sales office (Columbus, Ohio) was apparently(?) shut down, and I have not heard one word from Encore! No one has called and said "Hey, I'm your new Encore contact", or even, "Hey, you no longer have an Encore contact". I've just been left hanging. And it's not like this just happened last week, it apparently transpired some time ago. As for the long-awaited 4.3 release, these delays have cost Encore. Lack of subnetting support under 4.2 cost them at least one Multimax sale on this campus. The CS department here watched closely our experience with the Multimax, and were impressed with the machine, but for this one (major) defficiency. "Real soon now" wasn't good enough for them, and that sale will now most likely go to DEC, as they have become quite price (and performance) competitive, and have (along with most vendors) supported subnetting for quite some time.
jsloan@handies.ucar.edu (John Sloan,8292,X1243,ML44E) (11/17/89)
From article <838@thor.wright.EDU>, by dcourte@thor.wright.edu (Dale Emery Courte,040P Lib. Annex,873-4030,): > From article <20754@ut-emx.UUCP>, by clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover): >> Well, I AM faulting Encore Customer Service!! As best that I can tell, the : > Whew! This group has been so quiet I thought I was the only one who was > concerned about this.A : > As for the long-awaited 4.3 release, these delays have cost Encore. Lack of > subnetting support under 4.2 cost them at least one Multimax sale on this > campus. The CS department here watched closely our experience with the > Multimax, and were impressed with the machine, but for this one (major) > defficiency. "Real soon now" wasn't good enough for them, <Hi, Dale!> Since in my previous job I participated in the very decision making process Dale describes in that same CS Department at Wright State, I guess I'll let off some steam here, not all directed an Encore. <<<FLAME ON>>> Y O U ' R E R I G H T , D A L E !!! But the problem isn't limited to Encore, or even to companies having difficulty with user support. For twelve years at WSU I waited for a computer and/or network sales rep that understood what academic computing environments were all about. For twelve years I had to _try_ to educate one rep after another (and boy, do they turn over frequently), from xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, and xxxxxx (you fill in your own, you know who they are), and a lot of other companies to the fact that (as the years wound by) without Ethernet, without TCP/IP, without UNIX, without subnetting, without client and server NFS and YP, without X11, their wonder box was nothing more than a BIG EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT. The damn thing could turn back flips, but if it couldn't be integrated into our network environment, users simply couldn't use it. Its not that they wouldn't WANT to use it, but it would be so inconvenient, inefficient, ineffective, or actually impossible, that the usage, and people's attitudes about the product, would never be what the vendor expected. "Please, God", I would pray (and as Dale knows, I am not a particularly religious person), "send me a sales rep that knows their product line; that knows how it compares to other vendors products; that knows how it could be integrated into my network effectively; one that knows the difference between 20 users running a word processing application and 20 users running concurrent prolog, ADA, and Common Lisp. Or the difference between supporting four workstations in a lab, and a hundred workstations across a Department, and a thousand workstations across a campus. One who has my long term interests at heart... okay, I'll settle for my short term interests." Now, I'm not unreasonable (as Dale knows), I expected to have to make a deal here. "Please, God, I promise not to be nasty to them. I promise not to laugh at their inflated, silly claims. I promise not to mock their marketing-speak. I promise to give their product a fair chance. I promise not to harbor unclean thoughts regarding justice, punishment, and torture. Really. Honest. Would I lie to you?" But it never happened. Not once. Ever. Lord knows, I tried. I gave talks, held impromptu seminars, complete with pretty slides and graphics, and gave demos and tours of our facilities, but about the time I thought I was getting through to one sales-droid, it would be replaced with a new model with its memory reset. We were mostly reduced to picking out the buzz words from the sales pitch (ignoring 99% of what was said), and evaluating the magic product ourselves, depending upon kind USENET users and folks at other institutions who used this same product and looked upon us with almost superhuman patience, and were willing to explain why they didn't like this piece of software or that box. Many of you will say "Welcome to the real world". Well, you are so right. Let the buyer beware. But just once, once (am I asking so much?) I would like to see a sales rep that _knew_, really _knew_, when what they were saying was pure horse hockey. But as long as vendors hire marketing and sales folks who have degrees in <<<FLAME OFF>>> <sizzle> There, now _I_ feel better, and maybe some of you do to, now that you know (really, didn't you always really know?) that someone else feels the same way you do. DISCLAIMER: I have nothing to do with purchasing in my new job. Nothing at all. Zilch. Thank god. Vendors, don't call me, unless you want some real invective. I've had enough of you. Go sell used cars, or handle procurement for the Pentagon. I have no idea what experiences my current employer has had with vendors xxx, xxx, xxxx, or even xxxxxx. John Sloan NCAR/SCD NSFnet: jsloan@ncar.ucar.edu P.O. Box 27588 P.O. Box 3000 +1 303 497 1243 Lakewood CO 80227 Boulder CO 80307 Member: ACM,IEEE-CS,NSS,AMA Logical Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail. John Sloan NCAR/SCD NSFnet: jsloan@ncar.ucar.edu P.O. Box 27588 P.O. Box 3000 +1 303 497 1243 Lakewood CO 80227 Boulder CO 80307 Member: ACM,IEEE-CS,NSS,AMA Logical Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.