kmoore@shiloh.UUCP (kirk moore) (11/19/89)
I have listened very intently to the discussions and flames that have been passed around about ISC. I thought to add my two cents, (really inflation and all). I have been up and running ISC 2.0.2, Vpix 1.1.1, a developers system for about 4 months. The following will give you a idea as to my opinion about ISC and SCO. I was, repeat was a SCO loyal. I ate, breathed and loved SCO. Unitl i went to upgrade my system. I am a small company, so I wanted to do this in steps. I had Xenix 286 2.2. Since purchansing that product, I moved into a 386-20, 1 240 scsi(7000fasst), 1 383 esdi, 4 meg of memory. I had the SCO on a 286 doing development. I called SCO and asked about upgrades. What I had wanted to do was upgrade the OS, then upgrade the Development system. I spent 1 week, high blood pressure, lots of tums not getting anywher e. I was asking 1 simple question: "If I upgrade my OS now to 386 2.3 will my 286 development system run until i purches the 386 2.3 development system. I got 6 different answers, upto, "why would you do that". It was at that point I started looking for a new operating system. A freind told me that last year at COMDEXs he had seen a company called Interactive that had a product in the AT&T vain. So I called. I got ahold of a person named Mary Taple, it had to be the greatest conversation that I ever had. They agreed to send me a eveluation copy for 30 days free. They gave me untold support. I had there help in getting the 7000fasst card up. They helped in the serial problems. They have helped me get up and runnin g to a point that I really have a first class system running. This site has been up and running for 4 months and I am pleased to say that I recommend the product to all my users, clients, and people looking into a Unix solution. For those of you that have problems, all I can say is that they have treated a small company, (ME), with alot of respect. They have been able to give the level of support that makes given support to my customers a pleasure. As for SCO, this has never been the case. I have had to deal with people that really should have kept thier mouth shut. I am not a guru, or a wizard. I am just a developer that has high expectations from a product that cam take two months operating exspences in fell swoop. From SCO that has never been froth coming. From ISC, they have never failed to help. I have never purchesed support, but Erick, Brain, Debbie, have never refused a call. SCO was in the habit of never returning calls when I had support (3 0 day). There is just a differance between the way they do business. I have dealt with Kodak in other areas, they have always been very profesional. I can see that this tradition has not escaped Interactive. I really am sorry for the long post, but after the fires and flames that have been leveled at ISC, some of which I feel are unfair. I felt that a post from someone that had good experances would be nice. The following is a list of what this system is currently running: 386-20 spring board (cloan) 4.0 meg of memory 240 meg scsi (7000fasst) 383 meg esdi (western digital flavor) computone Atvantage$ 8 3 2400 buad modems 1 logitech mouse (bus) Just a side note. When I had to build the kernel to support the scsi (7000fasst) is not supportted, Erik, and Brain spent several hours helpping me out. Since the drivers came from a different company, they could not help with those. With items that related to ISC, they were more that able and ready.
diamond@hdchq.UUCP (Bill Diamond) (11/20/89)
In article <349@shiloh.UUCP>, kmoore@shiloh.UUCP (kirk moore) writes: > I have listened very intently to the discussions and flames that have been passed around about ISC. I thought to add my two cents, (really inflation and all). I have been up and running ISC 2.0.2, Vpix 1.1.1, a developers system for about 4 months. The following will give you a idea as to my opinion about ISC and SCO. > > I really am sorry for the long post, but after the fires and flames that have been leveled at ISC, some of which I feel are unfair. I felt that a post from someone that had good experances would be nice. I agree! My flame went on longer than it should have, and certainly worse than is appropriate for a "family" group. My apologies to Patrick Curran at ISC - I believe he was sincerely trying to help. Our experience with the ISC UNIX kernel and software have been uniformly excellent - I have worked with quite a few versions of UNIX since 1981, as a programmer and developer. No one can touch ISC for pure quality in its OS. My complaint centers on a side piece of software, which I believe was not truly market-ready, or perhaps not ready for the amount of use it recieves in my organization. Unfortunately, we have been in a position of having to depend upon VP/ix to run our company - and the results have been stinging, for my company and for me. Honestly, if I had to choose again, I believe I would stay with ISC. I have never felt so in control of an OS, nor so certain of the underlying quality of a product. I received an e-mail message today, which I add: >From: uunet!ddsw1.mcs.com!nvk (Norman Kohn) >To: hdchq!diamond >Date: Sat Nov 18 23:39:51 1989 >To: diamond@hdchq.UUCP >Subject: Re: ISC 2.0.2 and VP/IX Dos Emulation >Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 >In-Reply-To: <290@minnie.UUCP> >References: <240@hdchq.UUCP> <36515@ism780c.isc.com> >Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Mundelein, IL >Cc: >>In article <290@minnie.UUCP> you write: >>In article <36515@ism780c.isc.com>, patrick@scrooge.ism.isc.com (Patrick Curran) writes: >> Try unplugging the keyboard and then plugging it back in again. >> This solves almost all of the "lockup" problems I experience. >This is one of the most inutterably stupid ideas I've ever heard. >I missed the antecedent message, but I should point out that my >microport 386 unix system has a possibly similar characteristic: >it sometimes ignores the keyboard unless I unplug and replug the >keyboard. At such times the shift and num lock keys fail to >toggle their respective lights. The problem may lie in the >hardware or firmware and not in the OS. This problem sounds distressingly similar to the phenomena experienced by my community. The writer does not state whether he uses VP/ix or not. For us, the problem occurs only within VP/ix. The wide perception by our users is that since upgrading from 1.0.6 to 2.0.2 the problems have worsened. With what I have been reading of late in the press about Phoenix Technologies financial woes, and the indications they will pull out of the UNIX market place, it doesn't seem to me that we will see any real improvements in VP/ix. Hopefully, I am wrong (again) and that Mr. Curran from ISC will educate me. I want to see ISC be a dominant force in 80X86 UNIX products - I am hopeful that we can develop office automation systems which we can commercially market based on ISC products. I have been waiting over a year for the product line to mature, and some of the products have. I believe VP/ix is a crucial puzzle which must be resolved for me to market these systems. ISC must let its customers know when it can expect bug fixes, when updates will be shipped, but most importantly we just have to know about known bugs in the system. It really irked me to find that 5 bug fixes had been shipped from the net - and my distributor didn't even know. In ways, the problems we've had remind me of the Commodore - Atari battle between 85-87. Atari had the better technology, but couldn't match Jack Tramiel at Commodore for pure market savvy. Eventually, the 8-bit market was owned by Commodore. I fear the same thing will happen with ISC and its competitors.
pim@cti-software.nl (Pim Zandbergen) (11/20/89)
kmoore@shiloh.UUCP (kirk moore) writes: >The following is a list of what this system is currently running: >240 meg scsi (7000fasst) This is interesting. Who supplies a 7000FASST driver ? -- Pim Zandbergen domain : pim@cti-software.nl CTI Software BV uucp : ..!uunet!ctisbv!pim Laan Copes van Cattenburch 70 phone : +31 70 542302 2585 GD The Hague, The Netherlands fax : +31 70 512837
root@shiloh.UUCP (Admin) (11/21/89)
The drivers are supplied Columbia Data Products, Inc. Thier telephone number is (407) 869-6700. Thier tech support is great also. I have had to count on them to supply the information that ISC couldn't, and they were able.