CHOJNACKI@VAXMFG.TECH.NWU.EDU (Bob Chojnacki) (10/06/88)
To all those PRO 350/380 owners: We have about 17 or so PROs and they are connected to a VAX running VMS. About a week ago a post-doc said he was having problems with the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT linker (I do not know if it is different than the RSX linker we have on our VAX.) So I thought I would call up DEC and ask them to send us a new version of the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT for our VAX (we upgraded to VMS 5.0, or so). The DEC salesman said that that product was discontinued about a year ago and as of January 1, 1989, DEC will no longer support hardware nor software items related to PROS (or something like that.) Has anyone else heard anything about this? Confused and left with a bunch of PRO's: Bob ---- Bob Chojnacki Programmer/Analyst Center for Manufacturing Engineering/Department of Mechanical Engineering Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 USA ARPA: chojnacki@vaxmfg.tech.nwu.edu Bitnet: chojnacki@nuacc Disclaimer: My boss has no idea what I am doing, I think.
neff@pitstop.UUCP (Mike Neff) (10/08/88)
In article <8810051413.aa10119@accuvax.nwu.edu> CHOJNACKI@VAXMFG.TECH.NWU.EDU (Bob Chojnacki) writes: >To all those PRO 350/380 owners: > >We have about 17 or so PROs and they are connected to a VAX running VMS. About >a week ago a post-doc said he was having problems with the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT >linker (I do not know if it is different than the RSX linker we have on our >VAX.) So I thought I would call up DEC and ask them to send us a new version >of the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT for our VAX (we upgraded to VMS 5.0, or so). The DEC >salesman said that that product was discontinued about a year ago and as of >January 1, 1989, DEC will no longer support hardware nor software items related >to PROS (or something like that.) Has anyone else heard anything about this? > >Confused and left with a bunch of PRO's: > >Bob There was an article in Digital Review a little less than a year ago that stated this. Having worked with Pro's a couple of years ago on a CIM project at an aerospace contractor and being very unsatisfied with bugs, support, etc. we could smell them phasing out this line. A support person once told me that the 350 model had stopped being built as of October about 2 or 3 years ago. I think what little inventory that DEC has of these machines is being used for supplying bootstrap devices for their 8x00 machines. If your people plan on doing any new development or need new functionality, I would highly recommend that you make migration plans to new hardware. If you want to get rid of the Pro's, perhaps you could sell them for scrap parts to sites where they're using 8x00 machines or use them as doorstops somewhere :-). Also, I recall that when we got an upgrade on P/OS to 2.0, the bug fixes in the software exposed what appeared to be some hardware bugs and compatibility differences between 380 and 350 hardware that were previously undetected by their old OS software. I don't recall the specifics, but if you have old 350's, there's a good chance that you have these hardware bugs as well. 2.0 was also designed more to run on 380's than it was on 350's as the 350's were already starting to be phased out then. Good Luck, Mike Neff mneff@sun.com or ..!sun!pitstop!neff Sun Microsystems, Inc. Disclaimer: The statements here in this article are completely my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, Sun Microsystems.
jrl@swdev.Waterloo.NCR.COM (John R. Latala) (10/12/88)
In article <229@pitstop.UUCP> neff@pitstop.UUCP (Mike Neff) writes: >In article <8810051413.aa10119@accuvax.nwu.edu> CHOJNACKI@VAXMFG.TECH.NWU.EDU (Bob Chojnacki) writes: >>To all those PRO 350/380 owners: >> >> ... deleted text about PRO-350 and PRO-380 phase out ... >> > >Mike Neff >mneff@sun.com or ..!sun!pitstop!neff >Sun Microsystems, Inc. > >Disclaimer: The statements here in this article are completely my own, and >do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, Sun Microsystems. If DEC is actually going to phase out the PRO-350 and PRO-380 what will they be using as the console devices for the current 8xxx series machines and any future big end Vaxen?? They have LSI-11's in the 7xx series, I don't think they're going to go back to these?!? It would be interesting, getting a new VAX 8xxx and finding that the boot console is actually a uVax. I believe that the uVax is booted by an 8086. If this keeps up you could spend all day waiting for a chain of CPUs to boot before you got any work done! -- john R. Latala; NCR Canada, Ltd.; Waterloo, Ontario; Canada N2J 4G5 john.Latala@Waterloo.NCR.COM
cmf@cisunx.UUCP (Carl M. Fongheiser) (10/26/88)
In article <454@swdev.Waterloo.NCR.COM> jrl@swdev.Waterloo.NCR.COM (John R. Latala) writes: >It would be interesting, getting a new VAX 8xxx and finding that the boot >console is actually a uVax. I believe that the uVax is booted by an 8086. Well, guess what? Vax 8820's, 30's and 40's *do* have a uVax for the console. We have two 8820's here. It's kind of weird. The 8820's run V5 of VMS, and the console runs V4.6. I think I liked the PRO's better, because RX50's at least *seem* faster than TK50's! Carl Fongheiser University of Pittsburgh ...!pitt!cisunx!cmf cmf@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu cmf@pittunix.BITNET