larry@ihuxf.UUCP (Larry Marek) (12/28/83)
Can anyone (in 25 words or less) tell me if having a desk size model of a 370 is really useful? I mean its obviously a GREAT thing to brag about- "Ya, I got da powa ov a IBM 370 on MY desk!!" It would seem to me that there wouldn't really be much that I'd want to try and run from a 370 on a PC. Editors? Compilers?? The IBM PC would seem to have MORE than enough of these already. Okay, maybe its "specific" use programs - custom written jobs. But wouldn't you think that they were originally put on a 370 for a reason? Like maybe SIZE of the program - or more likely SIZE of the data it works on?? Sure you can put a 20 meg disk on a PC, but that's PEANUTS (pun intended) compared to the storage of a real 370. PLEASE don't get me wrong. I am **NOT** a IBM 370 snob. I REALLY do like micros. (I'd much rather interact with my micro than the 370 systems that I come in contact with!) I just don't understand the usefulness of this IBM release. Larry Marek ihnp4!ihuxf!larry -- Larry Marek ihnp4!ihuxf!larry
jph@whuxle.UUCP (12/31/83)
#R:ihuxf:-168400:whuxle:21300001:000:326 whuxle!jph Dec 29 07:27:00 1983 The largest community of time sharing users use VM/CMS, which is what the PC/370 will be using. Now that is not to say that that is the "best" system around, but there is a very large (probably an order of magnitude more than there are UNIX(tm) users) user community, plus a large base of applications that are now available.
rpw3@fortune.UUCP (01/01/84)
#R:ihuxf:-168400:fortune:28000002:000:634
fortune!rpw3 Dec 31 22:38:00 1983
What the XT/370 really will do is:
1. Get those bloody compiles off the production machines (the big 370's);
2. Get those bloody editor sessions off the production machines;
3. Get those maverick PC users back under control of the MIS/DP manager;
4. Get (some of) the applications tested before the users see them;
etc.
Seems to me that XT/370's are for folks that have already got 370's,
not so much for folks who already have PC's, if you see what I mean.
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphins Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065johnl@haddock.UUCP (01/03/84)
#R:ihuxf:-168400:haddock:13200004:000:795 haddock!johnl Jan 2 16:13:00 1984 The XT/370 is specifically targeted at people who already have VM/370 systems installed. You don't license software directly for an XT/370, but rather get a sort of sublicense which lets you download it from the mainframe where it already resides. (Well, I suppose you could license stuff directly, but the prices would be impossible.) For software development and testing, it should be pretty handy, since there aren't 300 other users who will get upset if the system or a crucial application crashes. As has been noted before, editing under VM is a pain. There's a large and slow editor named XEDIT which is not terribly convenient to use. Far better to use one of the editors that runs under PC-DOS for editing and bring CMS up just for compiling and debugging. John Levine, ima!johnl
burton@fortune.UUCP (Philip Burton) (01/03/84)
About five years ago, when the Apple // was the newest (only) game in town,
there was some discussion in Datamation about putting OS/370 on a micro.
One very perceptive person, it could have been Portia Isaacson, raised the
point that OS/370/micro would not be very exciting. Who needs that batch
orientation, the author wrote, with that ##@&*& JCL, etc. (Anyone who has
ever worked with JCL, TSO, etc., will think that even cp/m is nice, let alone
UNIX.)
Unless VM/CMS is **much** improved over what it was when I last used it in
1979, that too isn't exactly user-friendly, including the manuals for which
IBM is famous. (Obfuscation raised to a fine art.) At that time, the editor was
awful, simply awful, to anyone who had used even TSO, let alone WYLBUR.
So, one might conclude that a PC running CMS isn't really a
personal computer in the sense of spreadsheets, easy word processing,
etc. Rather, it's a low cost 370, or 4300, another "fighting machine" designed
to keep the Fortune 1000 all Blue.
If I'm were a programmer who is used to CMS COBOL or FORTRAN or whatever, then
I'd love the new PC. If I were my secretary struggling to learn a simple
communications program, I'd quit before reading all those CMS manuals.
--
Phil Burton, Fortune Systems:
-- (415) 595-8444 x526
-- 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065
-- {allegra,ucbvax!amd70,cbosgd,harpo,hpda,ihnp4,sri-unix,VisiA}
!fortune!burtonrobison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (01/04/84)
Presumably the PC/370 is exciting to people who have software systems all coded and ready to be used on a 370. Running the software on a PC/370 requires the minimum of software porting AND RETRAINING (people don't like to retrain). Because these are both short term advantages, it is not clear what will happen to the PC/370 in a few years. - Keremath, care of: Robison decvax!ittvax!eosp1 or: allegra!eosp1