walp@hdchq.UUCP (David E. Walp) (11/28/89)
> In article <PCG.89Nov20120912@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk> pcg@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: > > > >If I were your CEO I would fire you straight away. If your > >company demands the best from you, why are you using any software > >product that is explicitly described as not guaranteed fit for > > (Babble deleted) > > Thank goodness that you are NOT the CEO of ANY large or small corporation! > (Constructive stuff deleted) > > I'm sorry but working under the "no risk" umbrella that you have portrayed > would be like working in the dark ages. Any one want to go back to CPM? > > _ > Mark Hilliard N2HHR > rutgers!rochester!kodak!gizzmo!mark I am the "CEO" in question (actually 2nd in command) and need to set some of this straight. We are using/trying to use 386/ix and VP/ix to do real work and to develop sufficient expertise to market ourselves to those who would entertain migration to UNIX platforms but who still need/want their familiar DOS tools. We feel strongly that the avail- ability of user friendly tools will increase on UNIX, but it clearly is difficult to migrate today. UNIX does supply a cost effective alternative to lans, but VP/ix is necessary as a bridge, and will be for some time to come. (I hope that the DOS based developers are moving as rapidly as they say they are towards native UNIX products!) Regarding the keyboard toggling problem with VP/ix. What has gotten lost is that the problem is occurring as often as every second or third key- stroke!! Try unplugging your keyboard on every third key hit!! I do not understand how ISC can seriously believe that we can wait until January for this bug fix!! We have a pretty serious investment in ISC products and are trying to remain in the UNIX fold, but when the product (VP/ix) goes backwards from release to release it is very difficult to maintain the faith. Is there anyone out there who is comfortable with waiting for three months for a priority one bug fix ??!! And, unless the state of the art has improved since I started 21 years ago, the new release will be less than perfect. It is getting more difficult to get the CEO and the DOS-only camp to accept the continuing delays in integrating the UNIX products into our evolving "enterprise wide" network along-side 3-Com and Novell. Other than the vexation with VP/ix, our experience with the 386/ix product has been very positive. UNIX itself is very good and fast. X windows is solid, and we expect to be in the ISC camp for a long time. I just need relief for the interim period. -- Dave Walp V.P. Products Horizon Data Corporation uunet!hdchq!walp
jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond) (11/28/89)
In article <294@minnie.UUCP> walp@hdchq.UUCP (David E. Walp) writes: > > >I am the "CEO" in question (actually 2nd in command) and need to set >some of this straight. We are using/trying to use 386/ix and VP/ix >to do real work and to develop sufficient expertise to market ourselves >to those who would entertain migration to UNIX platforms but who still >need/want their familiar DOS tools. >Other than the vexation with VP/ix, our experience with the 386/ix >product has been very positive. UNIX itself is very good and fast. >X windows is solid, and we expect to be in the ISC camp for a long >time. I just need relief for the interim period. Dave, I can sure sympathize with your problem. As another CEO, I can tell you that my fondest wish is to have a functioning, user maintainable, and reliable Unix and Dos-under-Unix platform to migrate to from DOS. Since much of our work involves serial communications, I have an especially bad taste in my mouth right now with the interactive asy driver problems. More to the point. This may sound obvious but have you tried swapping keyboard brands? The reason I ask this is we've had a bunch of problems trying to replace Compaq keyboards with third party old AT-style keyboards with the function keys on the left. Most of our customers prefer these. After much investigation, what we've found is that the clock frequency in the 8041 keyboard controller varies enough between brands and even between lots of a given brand that keyboard handlers frequently get confused. Especially BIOSs like Compaq's that try to figure out if you are using an XT-type keyboard and adopt accordingly. I've even had that problem on this machine, a no-name clone with a phoenix bios. I select-fitted this keyboard to get it to work. Then I've traced other keyboard lockups to feline causes. Specifically, one of the cats that inhabit my offices that just LOVES to sleep on keyboards. I think he likes the noise because he also likes sleeping in styrofoam worms :-) I use the keyboard lock to stop spurrious keystrokes but apparently the static in his fur zaps the keyboard controller. Simply unplugging and replugging solves this problem every time. Anyway, if the interactive keyboard driver bypasses the BIOS (likely) and/or reprograms the keyboard controller (almost certain since the typematic action is much faster) it could get very confused by marginal keyboards. 73 John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Radiation Systems, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You emory!rsiatl!jgd **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!
pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi) (11/29/89)
In article <294@minnie.UUCP> walp@hdchq.UUCP (David E. Walp) writes: > In article <PCG.89Nov20120912@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk> pcg@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: > > > >If I were your CEO I would fire you straight away. If your > >company demands the best from you, why are you using any software > >product that is explicitly described as not guaranteed fit for [ ... ] > I'm sorry but working under the "no risk" umbrella that you have portrayed > would be like working in the dark ages. Any one want to go back to CPM? > _ > Mark Hilliard N2HHR > rutgers!rochester!kodak!gizzmo!mark Executives do take risks, they can, as I said, decide to run the risk of using for critical applications software whose only guarantee is that the floppies will be exchanged if found defective within N months. They want to *know*, though, that such is the case, because they want to know that if things do not work, the supplier is under *no obligation* to support them or to pay up or to make things good. CEOs want to be able to estimate the size of the risk they take, and if suppliers take themselves out of the picture, this changes the amount of risk considerably. If the CEO expects things to work, and the supplier to solve problems, then the CEO is badly misinformed as to the representations made by the supplier, and is betting good company money on the wrong assumptions. CEOs hate to find out that their subordinates withold such critical risk assessement information from them. Hope your CEO does not find out, or that he has jolly good humour (hahahaha! so we can get a new set of floppies for our thousands dollars! hahahaha!). I am the "CEO" in question (actually 2nd in command) and need to set some of this straight. [ ... ] Regarding the keyboard toggling problem with VP/ix. What has gotten lost is that the problem is occurring as often as every second or third key- stroke!! Try unplugging your keyboard on every third key hit!! I do not understand how ISC can seriously believe that we can wait until January for this bug fix!! ISC is in the clear, IMNHO; they have warned you in capital letters that you should have no expectation as to the functionality of the product in general, and that all risk as to performance is with you; they also, quite honestly and helpfully, publish a list of equipment that they reckon has a better chance of being satisfactory to you (because it was to them), without guaranteeing anything of course. ISC seriously believe what they write in their contracts, I can imagine. I can also guess that they also seriously believe that they cannot possibly support any and every glitchy keyboard you can find out there. So you are on your own, and if the keyboard/computer is not on ISC's "suggested" list, you are doubly so. If you believe otherwise, then you are engaging in wishful thinking. We have a pretty serious investment in ISC products Again and again I must insist that you have a pretty serious investment in ISC *floppies*; as to the software, you have it on faith and goodwill alone. As to the hardware (which I think is the real culprit here) I very much doubt that anybody ever made any representation as to it working with Unix or MSDOS or ISC (and have you noticed how much hardware in the PC world today comes without serial numbers or markings of any sort, including company names and country of origin?). If you don't dig such crucial concepts, your business decision taking process is somewhat optimistic. and are trying to remain in the UNIX fold, but when the product (VP/ix) goes backwards from release to release it is very difficult to maintain the faith. Is there anyone out there who is comfortable with waiting for three months for a priority one bug fix ??!! If you look at the tipical sw support contract, and I guess that ISC is tipical, the supplier undertakes, in exchange for a fat fee, to *accept* your bug reports, not to *act* on them (a support contract usually gives you only the right to report bugs -- no support contract, and you cannot report bugs :->). IMNHO, executives should read the contracts from their suppliers, and take them seriously indeed. It is getting more difficult to get the CEO and the DOS-only camp to accept the continuing delays in integrating the UNIX products into our evolving "enterprise wide" network along-side 3-Com and Novell. You should have no expectations whatsoever as to the performance of ISC Unix, but this is veryly true as well for MSDOS or any MSDOS product. The arguments you can use with your CEO and the MSDOS only camp is to point out that MS has repeatedly released extremely buggy and unreliable MSDOS versions (3.1? 4.0?), and that they have total control of the thing, and that suppliers in the MSDOS arena must invest considerable time and money and expertise just in tracking MS vagaries, undocumented interfaces, etc... The UNIX camp is more of a level playing field, there are neutral standards, and puslished, reliable interfaces, and choice of suppliers, and if you really want it, source code availability, and these things matter to reliability and your customers. As long as you know that you are on your own, and your CEO knows what kind of risks this entails, and is prepared to live with them (as he should, IMNHO), that's good. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk