Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!EN.ECN.PURDUE.EDU!zawada From: zawada@EN.ECN.PURDUE.EDU (Paul J Zawada) Newsgroups: comp.sys.encore Subject: Re: is there interest ... NP/1 Message-ID: <8912011612.AA10618@en.ecn.purdue.edu> Date: 1 Dec 89 16:12:26 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 58 clp@beartrk.beartrack.com (Charlie Pilzer): > > Considering that NP/2 and NP/1 were not compatible (directly anyway), its > no wonder it got cancelled. The NP/1 and NP/2 were binary compatible.. Anything compiled on an NP/1 was supposed to be able to run on an NP/2. > > I think the same goes for software. No new releases but there will be bug fixes. Some of the fixes from Purdue aren't being widely distributed though. (A little trivia.. Did you know that all NP/1s without a patch written here last June will crash 24 days, 20 hours and 31 minutes after being booted up? The UIOM hardware clock goes negative!) New bugs really aren't being actively pursued either.. at least here... > > I support a number of PowerNode installations and I've worked with UTX since > Version 1.1. There were a lot of really good things about UTX. The > PowerNodes had really good price/performance in their time (1984-1987). There > were some problems in getting the new hardware (NPL) out the door but from > what I've heard they are solid, dependable beasts. Our NP/1s run faster than our Computing Center's white elephant, the ETA-10P. Just the other night we had 180+ users on one of the NP/1s, and performance was quite good. (Of course, it's still not like the performance with only 10 people on...) > > THe saddest part of the Gould story wasn't the buyout. That's pretty positive. > No, it was watching a company fall apart. Many of the best people in Gould > How very true. Sure Encore might not have been the best company to buy out Gould/CSD, but then again who was? Nobody wanted the company for over a year. It is sad that a lot of good engineering had to go right down the tubes along with a good company. I have to apologize everyone at Encore for "lashing" out at them in my last article. I realize business decisions had to be made and someting had to be done, and I don't know the whole story. IMHO though, I think killing the NP/2 was a bad decision though. Here they had a high performance machine ready for beta testing, and they killed it. Granted, it was Gould's research $$ that they dropped down the drain, but wouldn't have been a good idea to take advantage of that research? I was so anxious to get my hands on the NP/2... I heard how great a machine it was going to be for months... and then I find out it's not worth the millions of dollars and years of research that was put into it. pjz... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paul J Zawada | zawada@ee.ecn.purdue.edu "E-site" Student Consultant | ...!pur-ee!zawada Purdue University | Engineering Computer Network | GO BOILERS!!!