[bionet.software] Information on HP 720 RISC workstation

engeje@uts.uni-c.dk (Jacob Engelbrecht) (03/28/91)

Has anyone any information - or better experience - with the new HP RISC series
700, in biological sequence analysis.

It's performance/price ratio looks very impressive: 17.0 MFLOPS for about
$15,000 for a HP 720.

I know nothing of the HP-UX dialect of UNIX and would like to know if anybody
has experience with it compared to SUN and SGI which are the other alternatives
I have considered.

will@genbank.bio.net (Will Nelson) (03/30/91)

In article <9103272141.AA23152@genbank.bio.net>, sgough@S850.MWC.EDU (stephen gough) writes:
> 
> You should have no trouble going from SunOS to HP-UX if you are using standard
> software calling standard libraries and the like.  The differences lie mainly
> in system administration (even those are fairly trivial) and systems-level
> programming where the kernel itself is used, or where specific utilities (e.g.,
> an error log) are to be accessed.   Both SunOS and HP_U-UX are System V-flavor
> machines with some Berkeley extensions, but SunOS is a bit more "Berkeleyish."
> This shouldn't matter unless you rely heavily on scripts which make heavy use
> of BSD utilities.   Both systems support the Bourne, C and korn shells.
> 

I don't know what you mean when you say that SunOS "supports" the Korn shell.
It is not included in SunOS 4.1.1 and never has been to my knowledge.

-- 
Will Nelson			Internet: will@presto.ig.com
Intelligenetics, Inc.		Uucp:     ames!ig.com!presto!will
700 East El Camino Real		(415) 962-7363
Mountain View, CA  94040

ken@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) (03/30/91)

In article <9103272141.AA23152@genbank.bio.net> sgough@S850.MWC.EDU (stephen gough) writes:
>
>You should have no trouble going from SunOS to HP-UX if you are using standard
>software calling standard libraries and the like.  The differences lie mainly
>in system administration (even those are fairly trivial) and systems-level
>programming where the kernel itself is used, or where specific utilities (e.g.,
>an error log) are to be accessed.   Both SunOS and HP_U-UX are System V-flavor
>machines with some Berkeley extensions, but SunOS is a bit more "Berkeleyish."
>This shouldn't matter unless you rely heavily on scripts which make heavy use
>of BSD utilities.   Both systems support the Bourne, C and korn shells.
>

Ummmmmmm...no.

SunOS is Berkeley derived.  Its got a few System V things thrown in.
HPUX is System-V derived, plus a lot of weird stuff thrown in.  They 
are about as different as two Unixes can be.  Porting software between
them is by no means always trivial.  

--
	 ken seefried iii	ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu

	"If 'ya can't be with the one you love, 
		   honey, love the one you're with..."

dusan@physik.uni-bielefeld.dbp.de (Dusan) (04/03/91)

Hi,

although I can't tell anything concerning the HP 720 RISC station, I do
have some expirience with HP-UX. We are using an HP9000/360 running OS 6.5.

Almost any software written for the Unix environment needs to be rewritten, if
you want it to run under HP-UX. Take a look at the HP-UX include files - they
are heavilly modified. If you want easy implementations of molbio software
I recommend to stick closer to the SUN family... A great number of Unix
software for the molecular biologist is developed on SUN workstations.

Maybe the next HP-UX releases will be more compatible, but currently I do not
like HP-UX at all...


sincerely,

Dusan Zivadinovic
University of Bielefeld
Department of Genetics
4800 Bielefeld
Germany

email: Dusan@physik.uni-bielefeld.dbp.de

donnel@helix.nih.gov (Donald A. Lehn) (04/03/91)

(I'm sorry if this appears to be a re-post, but my original was bounced
back to me and someone suggested that I repost this.)

        For those people who would like to get Postscript output from
the GCG programs that can be sent to virtually any postscript printer.

        The first thing that you must do is set up the GCG environment for
graphical Postscript output.  This is done by typing "Postscript" at the
GCG $ prompt.  For example:

$Postscript

        You will then be prompted to select the type of Postscript printer
is attached.  Press <return> and accept the default choice of the Laserwriter.
You will then be asked what port your Laserwriter is connected to.  Accept the
default answer <TERM>.

        The GCG environment is now setup for postscript printing.  You have
to do this each time you log on so you may wish to put these commands in the
LOGIN.COM file.

        To get Postscript file output you need to use the command line
argument:  /PLOT="filename.eps"

For example:

mapplot /plot="filemane.eps"

will save the mapplot output in a Postscript file called filename.eps.

        To print this file on a Postscript printer,  download the file to
your pc and print it by using the command:

copy filename.eps prn

(If your printer is on a com port, you would have to copy it to that
particular port.)

        Note: Using "print filename.eps" may not work, since in some cases
the first thing that this sends to the printer is a reset instruction that
may cause some Postscript cartridges to have a fit and switch to standard
printing mode.  You will then be presented with pages and pages of printed
Postscript instructions.

        It is very important that the filename.eps file not be corrupted.
When you download it make sure that it is not corrupted.  Use kermit,
xmodem, zmodem etc. or else use FTP to transfer it.

Make sure that the first few lines of the Postscript file look something
like:

%!PS-Adobe-1.0
%%Title: Graphics From Program MapPlot
%%For: donnel
%%CreationDate: March 21, 1991  10:33
%%Creator: The Genetics Computer Group
%%DocumentFonts: Courier
%%Pages (atend)
%%BoundingBox 0 0 612 792
%%EndComments


If you follow these instructions, Postscript printing should be a snap.

Best regards,
Donald A. Lehn
Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenis - Protein Section
National Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892
Phone (301)496-2885    FAX (301) 468-8419
Email: donnel@helix.nih.gov

kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (04/04/91)

Most bounced mail comes from bad individual mail boxes on the
distribution list, not because your message was not posted correctly.
Feel free to either ignore these bouncers (we usually also get copies
here and take action to eliminate the problem) or else you can forward
them on to biosci@genbank.bio.net.  It is almost never necessary to
repost a message.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				GenBank Manager

				kristoff@genbank.bio.net