EVE:;,SU-Score@BRL.ARPA@decwrl.UUCP (08/26/83)
I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to Mike Lutz about
the Professional being a closed system.
Initially we have been a closed system, not publishing the
bus interface so not to hurt third party vendors in case
we needed to make changes. We never planned to keep it that
way forever, but it was a question of timing it
appropriately.
The CTI bus has just been made public. We will be providing
documentation on this.
1. Hardware Documenation
The hardware has always been documented ever since we started
to ship the system except for some specifics on the bus. The
problem is many did not realize the availability of the
"Professional Technical Summary". Once they were aware of
the summary, it sold out at DECUS. It can be ordered from
Digital Equipment Corporation. It is documentation number:
EK-PC350-TM-OO1. People have used it to put other OS's on
the system.
2. Development Tools
We always have had the PRO/Tool Kit in our plans. It will be
shipping in October with PASCAL, FORTRAN-77, COBOL-81, and of
course, MACRO, BASIC+2 and DIBOL will follow.
This product will also give you a full indirect command
processor, DCL, and let's not leave out EDT.
The product will also include all the documenation that let
you get inside the OS. The same RSX directives, etc., that
had been documented with the VAX and RSX based tool kits.
We are also documenting the interface to GIDIS, the VDI for
our graphics and hot to access the bitmap.
The box appeared to be closed. This was the case as typified by
the fact we had a private bus. However, it was not closed. It
appeared to be by looking at the menu's. The problem may have
been people did not get the VAX/RSX Host Tool kits with alot of
the software internals documented. Now with a public bus and a
PRO Tool Kit (no need to have a seperate development system any
longer) we are encouraging people to look under the hood.
Jeffrey H. Rudy
Digital Equipment Corporation
Professional Series Engineering
"use net-address for replies":
{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!eve::rudy
BillW@sri-kl@sri-unix.UUCP (08/27/83)
From: William "Chops" Westfield <BillW@sri-kl> Its actually true. Ive seen the DEC350 technical manual at the local DEC store. The micro may be successful yet, Ill beleive it when I see 3rd party hardware. However, I object to Jeffrey Rudy's comments that "we never planned to keep it that way (a closed system) forever". Maybe he didnt, and no ne ever told anyone else. SRI was privledged to see a presentation on the pro series very early in its life. The presentation was fairly technical, well polished, and relatively well received. This being a research institute though, the following dialog occurred after the formal presentation: Q: We like to connect up all sort of wierd hardware to our computers. are bus specs and hardware design aids available? A: No. From a hardware point of veiw, te system will be closed. We want to keep the systems maintainale by DEC,without a lot of inferior 3rd party hardware around to worry about. Q: sounds like a lose. A: we dont think so. the system will be supplied with sufficient hardware to do "professional" type applications, so there wont be a need for extra harware for most people. The technical market can buy micro-pdp11's, which use the standard QBus. Q: Will it ever run UNIX? A: No. Never. Both of these situations seem to have changed. Which is good. You can change your minds, but I wish you wouldn't lie to us. Bill Westfield
Seiler@mit-xx@sri-unix.UUCP (08/27/83)
From: Larry Seiler <Seiler@mit-xx> Hmm... part of the problem here is that DEC is assumed to speak with a single voice. Well, it doesn't. No organization does, but with DEC it's more extreme than with others. I also heard early on that the Pro was going to remain a closed system, but the person saying this knew enough to add that that was the final decision - for now. Clearly, there were some who from the beginning wanted the Pro to be open (at least eventually), and they've finally won over those who wanted it to remain closed. The real moral of this story is that DEC will always, sooner or later, do whatever the users demand. Or more precisely, those in DEC who always intended it to be the way the users are demanding will eventually win out over those who wanted it some other way. Enjoy, Larry -------