MCB@Mit-Mc@sri-unix (07/17/82)
MCB@MIT-MC 07/16/82 22:49:30 Re: Convergent Technology Workstation Query
To: info-micro at MIT-AI
Date: 12 July 1982 06:03-EDT
From: Steven T. Kirsch <SK at MIT-MC>
what do you want to know?
I'm particularly interested in knowing what comments or opinions other
people who have used the various versions of the CT may have. Things such
as:
* How radically has their software changed since it's introduction.
* Have other people been experiencing what Convergent refers to in their editor
documentation as 'editor crashes'?
* Have any users had problems with the file system?
* Although Convergent's documentation is fairly readable, in my opinion,
it has not always been representative of the products it describes.
In particular, Ive found that the documentation describing process and
task management facilities does not refer to the version of the software
that it came with, but rather to some imiginary version lying somewhere in
between the current version and an as yet unreleased version (7.0). I'd
like to know what additional areas people may have found this to be true in?
* Do the Borroughs and NCR systems based on the CT use the same operating
system (CTOS)? Or do they use XENIX (as the TRW version will, I am told)?
Or still something else? Perhaps another OS built on top of CTOS?
And what experiences do have people had with these?
* Has anyone written a decent memory management facility for CTOS? Having
to deallocate memory in the exact reverse order of allocation regardless of
what process you are just doesn't cut it.
* Has anyone written a replacement for the Convergent executive? Especially
one that spawns additional processes rather than chaining to the desired
program? What were the difficulties involved? Was it possible with
a pre- 7.0 release of CTOS?
* What opinions have you (if any) of the hardware?
* I've been experimenting with a CT workstation for a little while now, and
would like to hear what other peoples opinions of it are. My own opinions
so far are that they have some flashy software, what looks to be a decent
screen management facility, some other good software, some pretty poor
software, and overall a very poor integration of the the various parts
of the system. Particulary troublesome have been editor crashes, HUGE task
and task file sizes, and difficulty in obtaining customer support. (They
are friendly but overloaded to the point that they /never\ return phone
calls and are almost always unavailable when called. (have others had
trouble getting customer support?) I dont feel qualified to judge the
hardware... does anyone have any particularly good or bad feelings in this
area?
I'm cc'ing this to works and info-micro, hoping to reach some others who
have experience with the CT workstation. (If you saw this in INFO-MICRO, please
reply directly, as I am not on that list. Thanks)
Michael Bloom (mcb @mit-mc)