info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (12/18/84)
From: Richard Garland <OC.GARLAND%CU20B@COLUMBIA.ARPA> Impressions from the Fall '84 DECUS at Anaheim California Some things (a small minority of what was there) that caught my interest. On the demo floor: VAX 8600 - the new large Vax was operating in a cluster with several other vaxes. It was impressively quiet. The view inside showed a neat box which should be easy to maintain. VAXstation-1 this was actually quite impressive. The old VAXstation-100 (actually a terminal) looks sluggish in comparison. This has a 256k bitmap (2 video planes) in the microVax's memory. The software demos had a few rough edges, but nevertheless they showed impressive speed and a lot of promise. The had a Macintosh style "doodle" program which showed good responsiveness between mouse and screen. For those who missed the DEC announcement of this it is a microVAX with a 19 inch mono display (same display as VS100). It runs full VMS and has a window manager, terminal emulation (VT100, and Tektronix), and GKS graphics. DECnet-Ultrix They had a version of DECnet running on a 750 running DEC's version of 4.2bsd Unix (Ultrix-32). It worked: I tried file transfer and remote terminal. It was running over an Ethernet and you could talk to any thing on the floor with it (VAX-VMS, VAXstation-1, DEC-20, Pro-350, RSX-11 etc.). Ethernet bridge: this was a box that connected the DECUS ethernet with one in Boston and Nashua NH. (3 separate ethernets). It would forward packets to the other nets and keep local traffic and collisions from going out to the other areas. It used a satelite link (any type link would work). It didn't matter what protocols you put on the net (DECnet, LAT-11, and TCP/IP were all running) since it actually transmitted ethernet packets. Very clever implementation. I believed DEC designed the algorithm and a 3rd party (I think the company was called Vitalink) implemented it on a 68000 under license. (rumor was that DEC may sell its own box at some point). At the sessions: VAX/VMS V4.0 - lots of sessions on the new features of version 4.0. They said it was shipping and update customers should have it by Jan. 3rd. Some attendees said they had received it. (I haven't) VAX 8600 - several sessions describing technology and speed benchmarks. some rough numbers: Fortran 3.5 - 4.0 times 780 Cobol 3.5 - 4.1 times 780 Spice 3.5 times 780 Finite element 3.5 times 780 Whetstones: F 4.6 MW (Million whetstones) D 2.8 MW G 2.7 MW H 0.6 MW Multiuser mix: (1 part compute=fortran:little IO (2 part admin=dbms,datatrieve (5 part student=edit/compile/link/run) Speed # users (for saturation) Student 4 3 - 4 times 780 Compute 6 5 - 6 times 780 Admin. 2 3 times 780 TPU: a new editor for the VAX family. This bears a strong likeness to EMACS. It is "high performance" (30% more throughput than EDT), has 100+ primitives, an extension language (Simple structured procedural language) and comes with 2 front ends: EDT emulation and something called EVE. Multi-windows, multi-buffers, multi-pointers, -ranges. Primitives to manage VMS processes. Can run a process in a window. Can be "kept". Extended pattern matching primitives. Picture mode; insert/overstrike; jornalling/recovery; extension language interpreted or compiled; compiled code is in sharable sections; fast startup. Can be called and can call out to any VMS program using calling standard. Will ship with VMS V4.2 - bundled with VMS (i.e. "free"). A Language Sensitive Editor (not bundled) has been written on top of TPU. The developers said "We share the same philosophy with EMACS but we decided a simpler extension language (instead of Lisp-like or TECO) was more appropriate." VAX-ADA: was announced. Claimed to be fast (1000 lines/min.) and would produce very efficient code (comparable to existing high level languages on VMS.) Was certified in October by DOD. "Production quality". Local Area Networking: MS-DOS DECnet may be in the works (a'la IBM PC). DECnet running on Ultrix (on demo floor). These are a few of the things that caught my attention and I thought I would share them with net-land. Other DECUS attendees out there are encouraged to do likewise. Rg -------