johnc@dasys1.UUCP (John Canati) (11/27/88)
I am interested in the RT, and have been looking at it for a while. While IBM will brag about it, and their salesmen with tell me only the goodies it has to offer, I would like a "public opinion" as to what are the BAD aspects of the RT. Why wouldn't I want to use it as a multiuser system around a small business? Please mail anything you think might will help me with my question. Thanks in advance -- John - johnc@dasys1.UUCP
dyer@spdcc.COM (Stephen P. Dyer) (11/27/88)
In article <7963@dasys1.UUCP> johnc@dasys1.UUCP (John Canati) writes: >I am interested in the RT, and have been looking at it for a while. While >IBM will brag about it, and their salesmen with tell me only the goodies >it has to offer, I would like a "public opinion" as to what are the BAD >aspects of the RT. Why wouldn't I want to use it as a multiuser system >around a small business? Please mail anything you think might will help >me with my question. Thanks in advance -- John - johnc@dasys1.UUCP There don't seem to me to be many large technical problems with the RT. I can't speak for the AIX 2.x environment, but running AOS (4.3BSD) here at MIT, given enough memory, the 2nd generation (APC) RT makes a remarkably pleasant and fast 4.3BSD/X11/NFS/TCP-IP workstation. I understand that the latest version of AIX has, or will have soon, many or most of the important features of 4.3: sockets, X11, sendmail, BSD TCP/IP, long names (soon). One problem was that the 1st generation RTs were not as competitive as some other companies' workstations. Still, the DEC uVAX-II was no faster than the 1st RT (perhaps slower) and it did just fine, so technical aspects don't make all the difference. The newer APC models and the latest enhanced APC models are quite competitive, performing significantly better than most equivalent 68020-based products. The biggest problem with the RT is that it has been disastrously marketed. Hardly anyone knows anyone who has bought an RT, and advertising is practically invisible. And just try to buy one. I bought a used Model 20 last month, and I am still waiting to talk to the right person at IBM about purchasing peripherals and getting an APC upgrade, and the local IBM office is still treating me like a curiosity instead of a customer--and, with money in my hand, yet! Don't try to call a dealer, because most salespeople will give you a blank stare if you don't say PS/2 after the initials "IBM". A large company like IBM can blow a product like the RT and the red ink barely makes a blotch in their ledgers. On the other hand, a Sun Microsystems can not afford to do this--their early products were everything their company was based on, and they HAD to be marketed well. I don't see any evidence that the RT is being marketed any better now than it was before, and I would be much more worried about a company like IBM pulling out of an unsuccessful product line than, say, Sun dropping the Sun 3 product line. (Hey, I bought a PC Jr, OK?) I think the latest RT machines are technically just fine, and I'm glad I bought mine, since I'm coming out of an environment with a lot of RT experience, but you'll want to look at all your options before buying a small business computer. Because of the (relatively) small market for the RT, there is much less price competition for software than in the DOS world, or even for the XENIX/UNIX 386 or Sun 3 world. That is, there will probably be less software available and it will be more expensive than that for DOS, XENIX, UNIX V/386 or the Sun 3 families. A 386 machine running SCO XENIX 386 or UNIX V/386 might support your multiuser needs just as well as a more expensive workstation. Or it might not; that depends on your situation. --- Steve Dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu dyer@spdcc.com aka ...!{harvard,linus,ima,m2c,rayssd}!spdcc!dyer
rick@kimbal.UUCP (Rick Kimball) (11/27/88)
From article <7963@dasys1.UUCP>, by johnc@dasys1.UUCP (John Canati): > I am interested in the RT, and have been looking at it for a while. While > IBM will brag about it, and their salesmen with tell me only the goodies > it has to offer, I would like a "public opinion" as to what are the BAD > aspects of the RT. Why wouldn't I want to use it as a multiuser system > around a small business? Please mail anything you think might will help > me with my question. Thanks in advance -- John - johnc@dasys1.UUCP My firm (Software Design Group) writes office automation for insurance companies using UNIX and the customer's choice of hardware. One of our clients selected the RT as their machine. We've had at least two years of experience developing and using it. Overall, I'm pleased with the machine. Here are some "personal" observations of RT's running AIX 2.1.2 . My biggest complaints are IBM service (lack of RT knowledge), and the Virtual Resource Manager (it just gets in the way). Here is a typical service call, it goes like this: Me: "Hello, IBM service? Yes, I'm having trouble with my IBM/RT" Operator: "RT, no you mean AT ... just bring to a local IBM dealer the can help you." M: "No!No! I do mean RT. It's not a PC, it's a mini computer" O: "Well let me check if we sell those ... Ha, Ha, Yes your right" ... time passes, Tech calls. IBM Tech: "Ya got one of those RT things ... yuck yuck, What seems to be the problem?" M: "The machine is hung and there are lights flashing on the led display. The numbers are "02 C6"... We can't do anything. When will you be here?" I: "First I've got to work on a 36 and then a 3800 printer then I'll be at your place" ... much time passes, Tech shows up ... I: "This is the first time I've ever seen one of these things. ... Hmm doesn't look like the picatures though" M: "This is one of the originals. We've had it upgraded" I: "Well, let's run the advanced hardware diagnostics" M: "I've already done that. It says everthing is OK" I: "Well sorry, but that's all I know how to do. That will be $200 cash, check or credit card" ... The VRM is a great idea if the machine is going to support multiple operating systems at the same time, but if your only going to run UNIX it's a real pain in the rear. First you have to set everything up for VRM, like configuring the disks then you have to do it again for UNIX. The VRM eats up a significant chunk of the disk for itself. We've had relatively few complaints with ours since we added more memory and the upgrade option. Our customer is using a 135 and seems very pleased with it. -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Rick Kimball | Mac Source BBS, Altamonte Springs, FL DATA (407) 862-6214 | VOICE (407) 788-6875 UUCP: rick@kimbal ..!gatech!fabscal!kimbal!rick ..!ucf-cs!sdgsun!kimbal!rick
aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) (11/28/88)
In article <8158@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dyer@spdcc.com writes: >I can't speak for the AIX 2.x environment, but running AOS (4.3BSD) here >at MIT, given enough memory, the 2nd generation (APC) RT makes a remarkably >pleasant and fast 4.3BSD/X11/NFS/TCP-IP workstation. I understand that >the latest version of AIX has, or will have soon, many or most of the important >features of 4.3: sockets, X11, sendmail, BSD TCP/IP, long names (soon). AIX 2.2 doesn't seem to come with man pages or a man program. . . . . . .. . . . . -- @disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34) beak is@>beak is not Anthony A. Datri @SysAdmin(Stepstone Corporation) stpstn!aad
robin@itcatl.UUCP (Robin Cutshaw) (12/03/88)
I have been using AIX on the RT for development and networking for
over a year. Our organization is *very* close to IBM (as an IMAP, CSP,
and MAP for various products) and we are making the RT a major part
of our product offerings (along with some bigger iron). I've included
a summary of our experience on the RT up to this point.
The RT Hardware:
Simple to install if you don't have to open the box. If you have
to add a board or two it's not simple to figure out which slot that it
can or cannot go into. The multi-protocol adapter comes by default
with DMA channel one strapped which will not work with SNA services
due to conflicts with the ESDI defaults when using S1. Switch it
to DMA channel five and it will work. If you do want to use channel
one you will have to use the setdma command for the ESDI controller
(which is not easy to find in the reems of documentation). This will
drop DMA support for S1 however.
Some of our installs reached a snag when every time that we tried
to print something the machine would crash. This got to be a pain
because the qdaemon cranks up when you reboot and causes anything
queued to start again. The error messages could not point to the
problem, so with nothing to lose an SE changed the 4MB fast memory
and it solved the problem (go figure).
The machine can get confused as to where it's console display
adapter is. If you change it's location from say slot 4 to slot
2 it won't find it the first time if you put something else in
slot 4. Even if you clear slot 4 you are stuck and have to switch
to 5, reboot and tell diagnostics that you swapped it, then back
to 2 for the same thing. This happened to two different machines.
IBM hardware support wasn't sure why one slot was different
than another on the RT.
AIX:
2.1.X was a joke. Many, many bugs. 2.2 fixed most of the bugs
and added many new and wonderful features (rlogin, rwhod, etc). I
hope they fold all of the BSD based network daemons into inetd to
clean things up a bit. 2.2 is fast, it runs rings around our uVAXII's
running Ultrix 2.3 in CPU and file access benchmarks. If they would
clean up the BSD support and add job control we would probably convert
from our VAX's to the RT's as our primary development environment.
2.2 added much better BSD library support and fixed lot's of BSD bugs
but is still not quite there. Async for multiple dialups is still
very fragile and needs much work (no RTS/CTS flow control for high speed!).
Long file names would be wonderful!
Rlogin swaps CR's and LF's which can get confusing as to when to
hit ^J's instead of Enter's. If you rlogin from a non AIX environment,
vi won't work (a bug in their curses support). A workaround is to
rlogin back into yourself (potentially dangerous these days) and it
will fix itself.
X:
X-windows release 1.1 has many, many bugs (even with the updates).
Try echoing <ESC>[x while in xterm and watch the core dump. We
should get our 2.X release next week (X11R2) and hope to see lots of
working code.
SNA:
Not for novices! Don't do this without a license (dog, that is).
If it hadn't been for our high powered scope I would have never figured
out all of the right parameters (this is probably the worst set of
documentation in the whole AIX doc release).
SUPPORT:
The worst. When you call, it's "AIwhat, on an Rwhere?". This should
improve with more customers. The front line Austin support cannot (and
would rather not) answer any semi-technical questions. The first response
is always "have your SE come out and help with that problem". That's
probably OK for many customer installations but, we trained our SE on
the RT. She had never seen one before our account hit her desk. This
newsgroup will probably turn out to be the best forum for problems and
questions.
I have seen improvements as of late in the support. IBM has
recently put a major emphasis on RT sales and they seem to be gearing up.
It now takes two to three months to get delivery due to the larger
demand. The marketing rep's get major brownie points (Merps in the
lingo) for RT sales so we should see more activity and hopefully
more expertise.
<FLAME OFF> :-)
Even with all of the above observations and problems, we are still
very high on the RT and AIX. I attended a foo-foo AIX forum for
IBM's closest personel software developers and xMAPs, and it was
made very clear that AIX is going to be a major strategic direction
in the coming years. Major discounts and bene's are available to
software developers if you know where to find them. The upper
management in IBM is pushing hard at this AIX thing and it's starting
to seep down into the hords. We feel that with our head start in
the AIX world we will do well in most of IBM's hardware environments
in the future.
There are many, many neet and wonderful things to explore on the RT
under AIX. Our APA8C works very well with X even though it has
limited colors and resolution. Metafont is included along with
several different fonts. Graphics support libraries are quite
extensive (even though there is nothing that can show them off).
Async SLIP support seems to be there (we haven't tried it yet).
With X for DOS around the corner, my programming staff will have
X servers instead of VT320's to do their work on the RT's and on
the VAX's. Distributed services will help to grow our client
bases when they max out any given RT.
For us, the future looks good with AIX (both on the RT and on smaller
and larger hardware in the future). The performance will continue
to improve with the micro-channel and on-board CPU cache.
This group has the potential to help both the first time users and
the experts. We have an excellent resource for question and problem
resolution as our ranks grow. I offer what little help I can give
to anyone comming up in the ranks...
robin
--
----------
Robin Cutshaw {gatech,rebel}!itcatl!robin
Disc Access, Atlanta, Ga. (404)261-1264 (formerly ITC)clarke@acheron.UUCP (Ed Clarke) (12/04/88)
From article <2369@stpstn.UUCP>, by aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri):
> AIX 2.2 doesn't seem to come with man pages or a man program.
I think it's an optional part of AIX. I've got it on my system and /usr/bin/man
is just a shell script. The man pages are in /usr/man/cat? in either straight or
packed pre-nroffed format. The shell script also seems to be able to handle user
provided man pages in 'nroff -man' format.
--
Ed Clarke
uunet!bywater!acheron!clarkedannyb@kulcs.uucp (Danny Backx) (12/05/88)
In article <301@itcatl.UUCP> robin@itcatl.UUCP (Robin Cutshaw) writes: >AIX: > 2.1.X was a joke. Many, many bugs. 2.2 fixed most of the bugs >and added many new and wonderful features (rlogin, rwhod, etc). I Indeed. I routinely use a telnet connection to work with an RT. This was absolutely impossible with 2.1.2. I think the Ethernet software was broken. (AIX 2.2 is better, but still not good.) What happens on 2.2: when a large amount of data is being sent to my terminal, (say the output of 'ls -l /etc'), the first part gets tru, then the output stops, and after a LONG time, it continues (also in bursts). I suspect the timeout strategy in TCP. In 2.1.2, the first burst got tru, and then after some time the telnet connection broke. (Logging me out...) Rlogin is slightly better than telnet (don't ask why), but I can't use vi with it. > [..] . If you rlogin from a non AIX environment, >vi won't work (a bug in their curses support). A workaround is to >rlogin back into yourself (potentially dangerous these days) and it >will fix itself. As mentioned, vi doesn't work in an rlogin session. It does under telnet. I tried your workaround, but it didn't work for me. -- Danny -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Danny Backx | mail: Danny Backx Tel: +32 16 200656 x 3544 | Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Fax: +32 16 205308 | Dept. Computer Science E-mail: dannyb@kulcs.UUCP | Celestijnenlaan 200 A ... mcvax!prlb2!kulcs!dannyb | B-3030 Leuven dannyb@blekul60.BITNET | Belgium
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (12/05/88)
in article <2369@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) says: > AIX 2.2 doesn't seem to come with man pages or a man program. However, man is mentioned in the Commands Reference manual as being optionally available. I checked with our sales rep and: IBM AIX RT Online Publications RPQP91026 Price: $50 That number is supposed to be enough to order it. You may want to verify that number before you order. According to our rep. the online manuals cover the Commands Ref. and the Tech. Ref. I've always wondered, why doesn't IBM include the Tech. Ref. for AIX in with the standard manual set? Considering the Tech. Ref. is the essential manual for programmers.... John H. Lawitzke UUCP: ...rutgers!mailrus!frith!fciiho!jhl Michigan Farm Bureau ...decvax!purdue!mailrus!frith!fciiho!jhl Insurance Group ...uunet!frith!jhl "What?!? Real computing at an insurance company?!? AND in Michigan!?!"
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (12/06/88)
in article <139@icarus.kulcs.uucp>, dannyb@kulcs.uucp (Danny Backx) says: > > Indeed. I routinely use a telnet connection to work with an RT. This was > absolutely impossible with 2.1.2. I think the Ethernet software was broken. > (AIX 2.2 is better, but still not good.) > What happens on 2.2: when a large amount of data is being sent to my terminal, > (say the output of 'ls -l /etc'), the first part gets tru, then the output > stops, and after a LONG time, it continues (also in bursts). > I suspect the timeout strategy in TCP. This probably isn't TCP's fault. I work on a 3162 async terminal attached via an RS422 card to a Model 135 runnning AIX 2.2. I used to be hooked to a Model 125 running AIX 2.1.2. The pause on long outputs occurs on both these systems with no Ethernet involved. From what I saw, long outputs should be feed to pg. The subsequent pause every page is enough inactivity to avoid being swapped out as a result of alot of output. John H. Lawitzke UUCP: ...rutgers!mailrus!frith!fciiho!jhl Michigan Farm Bureau ...decvax!purdue!mailrus!frith!fciiho!jhl Insurance Group ...uunet!frith!jhl "What?!? Real computing at an insurance company?!? AND in Michigan!?!"
sauer@auschs.UUCP (Charlie Sauer) (12/07/88)
In article <2369@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes: > AIX 2.2 doesn't seem to come with man pages or a man program. Yes, unfortunately, but there is a PRPQ to get man pages and a man program. The PRPQ # is P91026, title is "IBM AIX/RT ON LINE PUBS," price is $50. Directory structure is a subset of BSD, but the command itself is a shell script. -- C.H. Sauer IBM Advanced Workstations Div. uucp: cs.utexas.edu!ibmaus!sauer 11400 Burnet Road, D75/802 822: @CS.UTEXAS.EDU:sauer@ibmaus.uucp Austin, Texas 78758-2502 aesnet: sauer@auschs (512) 823-3692 vnet: SAUER at AUSVM6