Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!ncar!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: SYS V R4 - When will it be released for Generic 386 boxes?
Summary: What does a trade-show demo mean?
Message-ID: <1989Nov15.010113.1945@ico.isc.com>
Date: 15 Nov 89 01:01:13 GMT
References: <89Nov2.084419est.18471@me.utoronto.ca> <1337@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <824@hsi86.hsi.UUCP>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation
Lines: 39

In article <824@hsi86.hsi.UUCP>, stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) writes:
> Anyone know who will ship the first binary release of SVR4
> for any type of hardware ?  AT&T for the 3B2 ?  AT&T for their
> WGS 386 ?  I can understand that all the third party suppliers
> have to integrate it with their drivers, etc.,...
>...If I, as an end-user, really can't get my hands on it for
> 6-12 months, then all the fanfare about its release last
> week is really a nonevent.

A demo at a trade show is usually NOT the event marking the introduction of
the product for real end-user sales.  Now, I flame as much as anyone about
vaporware and non-announcements (tho I usually do it over in comp.arch:-),
but I contend that as long as the status of a demo is reasonably clear, it
serves a useful purpose.

If you see a V.4 system up and running on real hardware, you have some
reason to think that when vendors say "we'll have it available in nQ90" you
might believe them.  There IS a lot of work to be done to make a system
which runs into a system which can be shipped as a product.  However,
knowing that the system really exists in some halfway-functional form
still means something.

Perhaps it's easier to see this with hardware.  Consider, for example, that
MIPS showed a very fast ECL machine at UNIX Expo.  It's not shipping yet;
you can't even order one yet.  BUT they're showing you that all the talk
you've heard about ECL RISCs is real; they've got the caches figured out;
they've got the OS running, etc.  The "inventing" (the part you can't
schedule:-) is done; the technology exists.  There may still be a lot of
work to be done to make the product, but it can be done.

Besides, there's a certain parity here.  If people show things at the point
they reach "demo quality", and you see vendor (or consortium:-) X showing
something, but Y not showing anything comparable, you tend to suspect that
X is ahead of Y.  If X and Y are both promising something for mid-'90, and
X has a demo but Y doesn't, you might have epsilon more faith that X will
deliver (IF it's a believable demo).
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Keep your day job 'til your night job pays.