POURNE@mit-mc.ARPA (07/13/84)
From: "Jerry E. Pournelle" <POURNE@mit-mc.ARPA> There was a very large ad for t he "S1" Operating System in teh Conventino Daily at NCC. If S1 was anywhere at NCC or anyone actually spoke about it, I did not see it. The Ad was a two page spread, that was cleverly designed to look as if it were a smaller advertisement surrounded by serious review text (interview with the promoter of S1). Has ANYONE seen S1 on ANY machine whatsoever? I have seen nothng but paper, leaving me with the impression that s1 OS is vaporware; and here and there I get a whiff of something else... ANY EVIDENCE of existence of S1 would be appreciated.
hart@cp1.UUCP (07/15/84)
The company marketing S1 is actively trying
to raise capital. I received a package from
a stock broker friend last week loaded with
news releases. If their claims are true, they
have one hell of a system.
--
======================================================================
signed: Rod Hart (wa3mez)
Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co.
Bell Atlantic Inc.
Silver Spring, Md.
gamma!cp1!hart - umcp-cs!cp1!hart - aplvax!cp1!hart
======================================================================dfarber@udel-ee.ARPA (07/16/84)
From: Dave Farber <dfarber@udel-ee.ARPA> I asked the S1 people why there was no system at NCC and they mumbled something about not having a machine they could spare from their development schedule. Sounded weak. I am driving up there soon and will report. Hope they are not as invisible as is Venix and Coherent are on support.
mats@dual.UUCP (Mats Wichmann) (07/16/84)
The S1 people were in the Hilton, not in the convention center. I talked
to Mr. Lombardo, who claims the stuff is running on a ton of machines;
he did not have any hardware at the booth, so yet again no demo. I have
still not heard about anyone who has seen ANYTHING serious running.
Did all of you catch the reference to `vaporware'? This seems to be the
new term, and I LOVE it. Refers to hardware and/or software, announced
but not yet in existence. There is a LOT of vaporware out there right now,
and S1 may well fall into the category.
Mats Wichmann
Dual Systems Corp.
...{ucbvax,amd,ihnp4,cbosgd,decwrl,fortune}!dual!matsCSTROM@SIMTEL20.ARPA (07/18/84)
I agree that the advertising blurbs are most interesting. I sent for a brochure and got a price list. The problem is, that I have never spoken to anyone (or read a message here) who has ever seen S-1 operating. The principals of the firm are either olish or larcenous if they have the nerve to make the types of statements we have seen yet are afraid to show the real product. I wonder if the magazines are getting paid for those glorious full-page advertisements?
brad@bradley.UUCP (07/22/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-193700:bradley:1100003:000:75 bradley!brad Jul 21 20:34:00 1984 'vaporware' what a great phrase!!! I like it better than 'it on the truck'
brownell@harvard.ARPA (Dave Brownell) (07/26/84)
Apologies if this info has already been posted, but I won't have
time to catch up to all of net.micro this eve. To recap, there
were queries about the "S1" system, which was reputedly a super-OS
that would do amazing things. ("Everything, all the time"??)
We get several UNIX newsletters here, and one of them had an
article about the S1 system a few months ago. To make a long
story short, they went to the shop for a demo, and didn't see
any hardware that looked like it could run what they said,
much less running software.
The newsletter clearly did not want to say "S1 does not exist"
since it *could* have been much confusion on the part of the S1
folk about what was required for the demo. It came across very
skeptical that S1 was more than hype, though.
Dave Brownell
{allegra,floyd,ihnp4,seismo}!harvard!brownellCSTROM@SIMTEL20.ARPA (08/02/84)
Thanks much for posting that entertaining article about the death of Unix, etc. I am not a very knowledgeable about Unix, so I cannot comment on the author's claims on that subject, but I do take issue with the death of CP/M. I assume he means CP/M-80, and though it is true that software oem's have gone the route of IBM me-tooism and forced obselescence, the eight bit arena is alive and well. Kaypro, CompuPro, Morrow, Macrotech, etc. are doing quite nicely supporting the "dead" operating systems such as CP/M and MP/M-86, and DRI does not seem to be hurting too much. What is even more amusing is that nobody on the ARPAnet has EVER seen S-1 running anywhere as far as I can gather. Whom do they think they are kidding??? At least Unix is a real product, and its developers are not out spending all of their time fishing for venture capital, but rather are working on software development! It seems like someone should blow the whistle on these characters already!
ojs@fortune.UUCP (Oliver Sharp) (08/03/84)
[] A couple of things about the article posted to the net recently: I am currently learning UNIX (I ought to be, given that we sell a UNIX box!) and have been learning some of the delights and pitfalls of this OS. Beginners are always the ones who complain about the system because it is hard to learn, the documentation is not beginner-friendly, etc, etc. These complaints are, by and large, true. One thing that people seem to lose sight of quite often is that UNIX was written by software developers FOR software development. It is a wonderful environment for just that. I call the orientation of UNIX expert-friendly, and I think it is great. Once you know how to use the system, a process that takes quite a while, you can be very productive with it. I have an IBM PC and I keep adding programs to it trying to get up to the level of functionality a normal UNIX system already has. A couple of languages, make, communications software, text editors, utilities galore, etc. are all standard. Each of these must be purchased separately for the PC and don't work together nearly as well as the UNIX utilities do. So, while it is time consuming to understand the UNIX system, if you want to do software development, it is worth the effort. Another complaint mentioned in the article was that there are all these versions of UNIX floating around and nothing will transfer from one to the other without changes. Again, this is true. However, I would like to see ANY other OS that runs on machines from an IBM PC up to DEC VAXen and higher still that allows ANY transportability at all. This is not really an argument in favor of UNIX over a new, even better system, but it is a favorable note in the real world where people are trying to get work done. It is possible to port a UNIX program between versions with RELATIVELY FEW changes most of the time. If the program was written with portability in mind, it is usually quite easy. Porting across AT&T versions is generally not too bad, and things generally don't get too tricky unless you start dealing with Berkeley's new version, 4.2 BSD. There have been a number of changes in it which sacrificed compatibility for functionality. A lot of people don't like 4.2 for that reason. Anyway, the point is that there is a lot of compatibility and most programs port fairly easily most of the time. Part of this is also due to the fact that almost EVERYTHING in UNIX is written in C (which I like a lot) and almost nothing is written in Assembler (which I also like, but .....). This is why it is so easy (relatively speaking, of course) to bring up UNIX on a new machine. Once the assembly stuff is rewritten, the C that sits on top of it doesn't need to be changed too much. While I see some of the faults that others find in UNIX, there isn't anything I've come across that does better. BTW, the UNIX idea of having a single file type is NOT bad - it is a cornerstone of the whole system and is a GREAT idea. I just thought that someone ought to mention the other side. I'm sure some of the UNIX gurus out there could write a much more spirited rebuttal, so come on guys - out with it! I think we could get a good discussion going (in net.micro.pc??? - maybe we should switch groups; I can feel the heat already). I love mail - send flames, agreements, etc. Oliver Sharp .......!fortune!ojs
trb@masscomp.UUCP (08/07/84)
From speech at NCC by John Little, Director, Multi Solutions Inc (peddlers of S1): > Given this state of affairs with current operating systems, >what is going to happen to UNIX? I don't expect the entire >market to suddenly look at UNIX and ask, "Where's the Beef?" As >always, some people will be more perceptive than others. Given this state of affairs with current operating systems, what is going to happen to S1? I don't expect the entire market to suddenly look at S1 and ask, "Where's the Beef?" As always, some people will be more perceptive than others. I hear that S1 will also do wonders for pyorrhea and gout. Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Westford MA (617) 692-6200 x274
bob@sdcsvax.UUCP (08/09/84)
Funny thing, the company seemed *VERY* interested in hiring me a few months back.... Seemed they lacked much of the code to handle distributed processing. They seemed to have a small staff (less than 20, I recall). Previous adverse Usenet opinions convinced me to leave them alone.