roth2@hulaw1.harvard.edu (05/21/91)
I just read in the wallstreet journal that HP will officially anounce it's "proffesional workstation" today, one based on the same '040 the NeXT uses. Interestingly, it will cost about the same as a station (and less than a cube) (around $5000 I think it said) and HP has *already sold* 10,000 of these babies!! Does anyone have any idea what they'll be running on that hardware? If it's anything decent, this would appear to be BAD NEWS for NeXT (no?). Tony Roth
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (05/21/91)
In article <1991May20.143857.1071@hulaw1.harvard.edu> roth2@hulaw1.harvard.edu writes:
I just read in the wallstreet journal that HP will officially anounce it's
"proffesional workstation" today, one based on the same '040 the NeXT uses.
Interestingly, it will cost about the same as a station (and less than a cube)
(around $5000 I think it said) and HP has *already sold* 10,000 of these
babies!! Does anyone have any idea what they'll be running on that hardware?
If it's anything decent, this would appear to be BAD NEWS for NeXT (no?).
Yeah, with these computers and the Snake(57 mips/$12) HP could be a
problem for a lot of computer companies. If only they sold Unix with
their machines.
-Mike
BTW, the 68040 machines were announce last June.hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (05/21/91)
As a user of both HP and NeXT I must come to the defense of HP. First they do run unix -- HP-UX (which is much better documented and supported than Mach/NextStep; a call to the HP-Support line gets you a fix within an hour, rahter than being shrugged off to your Campus-Rep). The Motif user interface is quite nice, and even the 50 MHz 68030 boxes have a performance comparable to the 25 MHz NeXT -- on the few programs I tested on both the differences were within 20% only). Until recently, the NeXT was certainly the leader in price/performance, at the lower end of the price scale. If the new HP-s (or are they the 9000/400 series at a lower price?) are indeed available at a price comparable to the NeXTStation, this will force NeXT to become a little better attuned to its users. There is, of course, room for both machines: the NeXT lends itself better to be used as a "Home Workstation" than the HP-boxes do; the extended version comes "fully equipped" with TeX, gnu-emacs, and some of the other FSF software, which require nontrivial work to compile under HP-UX. Whether NeXTStep or Motif is a better-looking interface is a matter of taste; I like them both. And let's not forget that the predecessor of NextStep was developed under HP-UX at HPLabs (under the name RMG), and then given/sold to Stepstone. Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (05/21/91)
In article <HARDY.91May20174558@golem.ps.uci.edu> hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes:
As a user of both HP and NeXT I must come to the defense of HP.
First they do run unix -- HP-UX (which is much better documented and
supported than Mach/NextStep; a call to the HP-Support line gets you a
fix within an hour, rahter than being shrugged off to your
Campus-Rep).
HP-UX seems to be different enough, that pulling programs off the net
and compiling them is nontrivial. However, I'm willing to be very
forgiving of a 56 mip machine(cheap Snake). HP pulled off a major
coup with the Snakes, but from what I hear their OS is a major
drawback. OSF/1 is supposed to be offered later this year, which
should help them.
The Motif user interface is quite nice, and even the 50 MHz 68030
boxes have a performance comparable to the 25 MHz NeXT -- on the few
programs I tested on both the differences were within 20% only).
Until recently, the NeXT was certainly the leader in
price/performance, at the lower end of the price scale. If the new
HP-s (or are they the 9000/400 series at a lower price?) are indeed
available at a price comparable to the NeXTStation, this will force
NeXT to become a little better attuned to its users. There is, of
course, room for both machines: the NeXT lends itself better to be
used as a "Home Workstation" than the HP-boxes do; the extended
version comes "fully equipped" with TeX, gnu-emacs, and some of the
other FSF software, which require nontrivial work to compile under
HP-UX. Whether NeXTStep or Motif is a better-looking interface is a
matter of taste; I like them both. And let's not forget that the
predecessor of NextStep was developed under HP-UX at HPLabs
(under the name RMG), and then given/sold to Stepstone.
Actually, the introduction of HP's machines could end up really
helping NeXT. The "Professional Workstation" market has been news to
many people. They thought it was something invented by NeXT. A $5K
NeXT seemed to be stuck b/w the workstation and the PCs markets. Now
they belong in a market that is about to grow a rapid pace.
-Mikethomsen@spf.trw.com (Mark R. Thomsen) (05/21/91)
roth2@hulaw1.harvard.edu writes I just read in the wallstreet journal that HP will officially anounce it's "proffesional workstation" today, one based on the same '040 the NeXT uses. Interestingly, it will cost about the same as a station (and less than a cube) (around $5000 I think it said) and HP has *already sold* 10,000 of these babies!! Does anyone have any idea what they'll be running on that hardware? If it's anything decent, this would appear to be BAD NEWS for NeXT (no?). Tony Roth This is my silly philosophical response, but a valid one from a particular point of view. How does the song go? "It's not the meat, it's the motion." HP is starting to get more attractive computers on the market. But they are, so far, 1980 computer systems - a box with a CPU, some memory, some storage, minimal system software. HP sells VUE which is weak relative to NeXTstep. Until HP moves up the scale on programming, bundled functionality, and other things of value, around here they will be just another evaluation system. Every month or two a new system will be announced with a blazing new CPU, claiming to make all before it pale. It is becoming a background buzz to these tired ears. Sparc, MIPS, i860, RIOS, Sparc 2, Snake, 80586, 68050, ... None of this is diverting anymore because they are all doing a fine job on the CPU without doing a decent job on the rest of the system aspects that seem to count more and more these days - imaging standards, software environment, telecommunications at human-to-human level, ratio of performance and cost, and inspiration to do a better job when using the computer as a tool. I think that quickie sales for an established company is similar to tradein return sales with cars - loyalty due to comfort is good business, but is not the same thing as a new company with a new product making their first sales. If HP sold 10,000 new machines then they will continue to have a good year. However, I imagine most of those 10,000 are machines that HP would have sold with another machine anyway. Having this months whizzy CPU does not make for a revolution or a reason why NeXT will die. Answer: No. Mr T
gt1111a@prism.gatech.EDU (Vincent Fox) (05/21/91)
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes: >As a user of both HP and NeXT I must come to the defense of HP. >First they do run unix -- HP-UX (which is much better documented and >supported than Mach/NextStep; a call to the HP-Support line gets you a >fix within an hour, rahter than being shrugged off to your >Campus-Rep). Perhaps this HP and Unix are different, but the HP 9000/835 with HP-UX 7 we have has a number of annoying deficiencies: 1) no BSD cross-compatibility. lpr? Hah never heard of it. Even SGI added lpr to their OS. 2) no recursive options on many commands. Try to chown or chgrp a whole directory sometime. 3) Maybe it's just me but I can't get the HP to understand rdist from any platform except another HP. And yes, HP does have a help-line. But frequently I get someone who knows less about it than I do. I want gurus dammit, not someone I have to explain things to several times. -- Vincent Fox (That's Mr. Bucko to you)|Georgia Tech, the only place where Friday Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA |is only two working days away from Monday. SR-71: gt1111a@prism.gatech.edu | -- Uttered by David Sonnier during Pony Express:...!gatech!prism!gt1111a| CS3602 lab 5/10/1991 ~ 1730 EDT
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (05/21/91)
Just to clear up some misinfo: 1)lpr can be run under HP-UX (I did under HP-UX 6.5). lp under > 7.0 is functionally equivalent and I no longer use lpr (there is an lpr-script thought which does the appropriate substitutions). I also understand that from 8.0 onwards lp will have lots of new features. 2) According to posts on comp.sys.hp recursive chown and chgrpare implemented in HP-UX 8.0. My experience with the HP-responseline was very good; and the local SE helped me in the one or two occasions I messed things up. On another note VUE/Motif vs NextStep: at leas the first can be repaired; My NextStep screen is still gray -- I have to use the NeXT in console mode. (Maybe the lack of response from NeXT to my pleas for help is tinting my opinion ...). Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
alan@wam.umd.edu (Alan J. Schunemann) (05/21/91)
In article <HARDY.91May20174558@golem.ps.uci.edu> hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes: >HP-s (or are they the 9000/400 series at a lower price?) are indeed >available at a price comparable to the NeXTStation, this will force >NeXT to become a little better attuned to its users. There is, of Comparable? I checked out the HP 400 series of machines BEFORE I , a student, bought my NeXTstation. The price of of an HP 400 when I was looking was beyond 10k. And they were still running an '030 50MHz with an "upgrade" option to the '040 pegged at $2000. Let's see...2000/5000 (retail not edu). Just for the upgrade? Any beyond all this "NeXT v. Other workstation" stuff it is critical that you actually go through the buying process before you can really appreciate an NeXT.Call up HP and try to order a workstation (ONE?) was the question I got. Then investigate the "base" price...this is the kicker. It's a box and monitor. That's it! You buy the OS, the OUTRAGEOUSLY priced HDs, etc, etc! A sun at edu (40% off) was apprx $9000. Oh, and BTW, the Sun's OS, at that time, only came on tape. So, "buy a tape drive". The NeXT is the BEST computer for the money...bar none! Next time you look at a price, look at what your getting. BTW- I bought a NeXTstation for ~$3200 (w/ 100meg another ~$1000 for 200meg), half the price of the Sparcstation. Never mind the interface war, I run X on my NeXT and it works like a dream....and I can switch to NeXTStep, try that on a Sparcstation or HP. >Greetings, >Hardy Later Alan -- _________________________________________________________________ Alan Schunemann "Well, what shall we throw away this year?" alan@wam.umd.edu -Andrew Carnegie
wag1@cbnewsl.att.com (d.wagley) (05/21/91)
In article <ur2Hc*?9@cs.psu.edu>, melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > > HP-UX seems to be different enough, that pulling programs off the net > and compiling them is nontrivial. However, I'm willing to be very > forgiving of a 56 mip machine(cheap Snake). HP pulled off a major > coup with the Snakes, but from what I hear their OS is a major > drawback. OSF/1 is supposed to be offered later this year, which > should help them. Different enough compared to what? I've been developing on HP-UX for over a year now and I don't find it significantly different from other Unix systems that I've used. I've moved 'C' code to and from Suns, Vaxes, 386s without any porting problems. Doug
wag1@cbnewsl.att.com (d.wagley) (05/21/91)
In article <29488@hydra.gatech.EDU>, gt1111a@prism.gatech.EDU (Vincent Fox) writes: > 2) no recursive options on many commands. Try to chown or chgrp a whole > directory sometime. Try: $ find dir -exec chown john {} \; Where dir is the top of the directory tree that you want to change, and john is the id that you want to change to. Works on every Unix system I've ever used, including HP-UX. Doug
scott@mcs-server.gac.edu (Scott Hess) (05/21/91)
In article <CNH5730.91May20145357@maraba.tamu.edu> cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu (Charles Herrick) writes: In article <1991May20.143857.1071@hulaw1.harvard.edu> roth2@hulaw1.harvard.edu writes: I just read in the wallstreet journal that HP will officially anounce it's "proffesional workstation" today, one based on the same '040 the NeXT uses. Interestingly, it will cost about the same as a station (and less than a cube) (around $5000 I think it said) and HP has *already sold* 10,000 of these babies!! Does anyone have any idea what they'll be running on that hardware? If it's anything decent, this would appear to be BAD NEWS for NeXT (no?). If I remember correctly, the HP/Apollo 700 Series (58 MIPS) sells for $10K and up. The machine is an incredible powerhouse, and as such, raises a bar in the industry. In response, I think that HP is to be congratulated for their contribution to distributed computing. I seem to remember that the system runs HP's Unix (don't have my Unix Today with the article in front of me (;-}). Presumably, he's referring to an _'040_ HP machine. I would suspect that it's an extension of the Apollo line (considering that HP bought them, and all, and their machine were 680x0-based), and would thus expect the OS to be Domain-based - Domain's Not Unix (to paraphrase :-). Then again, I think that HP _did_ have some 680x0 machines of their own, but I don't think they were quite so popular as the Apollo machines. But, regardless of what the machine's based on, it's not the 700 series. To get back to the original poster - I don't think they're a whole lot of threat. Sun is a threat to NeXT simply because Sun's already got a large market share, and lots of brand loyalty. HP was for a time, after the aquisition of Apollo, the largest workstation manufacturer - but their product line was a bit less unified than Sun's, which leaves them in a worse position than Sun WRT customer loyalty and all. Then again, these machines would probably be running New Wave, which, while not NextStep, is also not _X_, and has some nice extensions for multiprocessing and the like. Maybe NeXT should be worried (maybe NeXT should be working with them on this? :-). Later, -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer GAC Undergrad <almost out!> <I still speak for nobody>
rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec) (05/21/91)
In article <ur2Hc*?9@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >HP-UX seems to be different enough, that pulling programs off the net >and compiling them is nontrivial. [...] HP pulled off a major >coup with the Snakes, but from what I hear their OS is a major drawback. HP-UX is gratuitously different from BSD and SYSV in so many ways that I'd rank second only to AIX in non-usability. My advice is to spend the extra $$ to buy MORE/BSD from MT Xinu, which is real Berkeley Unix plus NFS plus lots of bug fixes plus lots of FSF software. Use your HP-UX tapes and manuals as fireplace starter. ---Rsk -- ---Rsk rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu
dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) (05/22/91)
In article <HARDY.91May20174558@golem.ps.uci.edu>, hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes: >matter of taste; I like them both. And let's not forget that the >predecessor of NextStep was developed under HP-UX at HPLabs >(under the name RMG), and then given/sold to Stepstone. Yup, developed by ONE awesome hacker by the name of Charles Young. This guy wrote down to the metal (optimized for each particular graphics card) on the HP series 300 680x0 boxes. This stuff just blazed, thought supposedly the internal code made wizards cringe (I can't comment as I'm 1. not a wizard and 2. never really looked at the code). This stuff was incredible...not only could you wire up an application a la NeXTstep but you could have a DAG drawn of the applications functions and when you ran the interface you could see it step thru the functions. You could have code running and arbitrarily instantiate a graphical interface widget a meter, a vu meter, a thermometer and graphically "hook" them to the running code and see the output change. Charles works at Hp Labs in the medical instruments group and just hacked this baby together to allow them to prototype the front panels of instruments being developed. Apparently there was some similar work done at SGI by Haberli(sp)?. If Charles were turned loose on a NeXT I'm sure we would get the Visual design/Visual programming that is missing from Interface Builder. By that I mean it is GREAT that IB lets you graphically lay out the GUI...but why stop there? Why not be able to graphically express the rest of the program? Just wire it up! David
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (05/22/91)
This may be the wrong followup, but I want everyone to know that NeXT does listen. I got a phone call from NeXT (with a promise of another) and a NeXTmail (and ascii) message from someone, suggesting that my /NextLibrary/Fonts may be corrupted. Long before that I received very helpful advice from Pascal Chesnais, and a number of others from the Next_managers mailing list. Though I thanked them directly, I would also like to do it in public. I hope that with their help, my "grey window problems" will go away. Be sure to read how to aoid the "grey-window-syndrome" in the NeXT issue of FAQ! Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
basiji@milton.u.washington.edu (David Basiji) (05/24/91)
dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) writes: >>predecessor of NextStep was developed under HP-UX at HPLabs >>(under the name RMG), and then given/sold to Stepstone. >Yup, developed by ONE awesome hacker by the name of Charles Young. This guy >wrote down to the metal (optimized for each particular graphics card) on >the HP series 300 680x0 boxes. This stuff just blazed, thought supposedly >the internal code made wizards cringe (I can't comment as I'm 1. not a >wizard and 2. never really looked at the code). This stuff was >incredible...not only could you wire up an application a la NeXTstep but >you could have a DAG drawn of the applications functions and when you ran the >interface you could see it step thru the functions. You could have code >running and arbitrarily instantiate a graphical interface widget a meter, a >vu meter, a thermometer and graphically "hook" them to the running code and >see the output change. >Charles works at Hp Labs in the medical instruments group and just hacked >this baby together to allow them to prototype the front panels of >instruments being developed. Apparently there was some similar work done >at SGI by Haberli(sp)?. >If Charles were turned loose on a NeXT I'm sure we would get the Visual >design/Visual programming that is missing from Interface Builder. By that I >mean it is GREAT that IB lets you graphically lay out the GUI...but why >stop there? Why not be able to graphically express the rest of the program? >Just wire it up! >David Have you folks ever seen LabView for the Mac from National Instruments Corp? It's similar to your concept of wiring up the program. It's optimized for data acquisition from experimental apparatus and its subsequent analysis, but I've managed to get some decent instrument control out of the thing (with both of us kicking and screaming the whole way). You simply wire up your graphical objects in the correct order and context and off you go (hah). Its biggest drawbacks are its speed (sloooowww), its lack of objects and hardware for external control of devices/data and its needless complexity at times. It's a very impressive effort but it looks and drives like it was developed seriously at first and then rushed to market, possibly by a different development team. With more development and run on a decent machine, it would be very formidable indeed. Dave Basiji
mycroft@kropotki.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) (05/24/91)
In article <43578@netnews.upenn.edu> rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec) writes: In article <ur2Hc*?9@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >HP-UX seems to be different enough, that pulling programs off the net >and compiling them is nontrivial. [...] HP pulled off a major >coup with the Snakes, but from what I hear their OS is a major drawback. HP-UX is gratuitously different from BSD and SYSV in so many ways that I'd rank second only to AIX in non-usability. My advice is to spend the extra $$ to buy MORE/BSD from MT Xinu, which is real Berkeley Unix plus NFS plus lots of bug fixes plus lots of FSF software. Use your HP-UX tapes and manuals as fireplace starter. Let me state (some of) my experience here. I currently use HP/UX 7.0 on 3 HP 9000/834's. The only significant BSD library functions that I've found that were *not* included in either libc or libBSD [Did you forget about that?] are usleep(), re_comp(), and re_exec(). Now, personally, (and probably my location will give away why) I use the GNU re_comp() and re_exec(), which I snarfed from GNU Emacs. For usleep() I use a cheap hack snarfed from the X11 distribution, which would be easy enough to duplicate. These are, quite honestly, the only portability problems I've encountered. And I have ported (with little or no modification) X sources, various IP domain socket code, several GNU utilities [;-)], and A Whole Bunch More (tm). And, for those of you worried about shared libraries, that's been fixed in HP/UX 8.0, which *is* shipping; I just don't happen to have it yet. Now if I could only teach NFS about context dependent files and access control lists...