Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!pacbell!indetech!fiver!palowoda From: palowoda@fiver (Bob Palowoda) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: Altos 5000 Message-ID: <1990Aug28.064145.26246@fiver> Date: 28 Aug 90 06:41:45 GMT References: <3864@altos86.Altos.COM> Organization: Fiver Communications, Fremont, Ca Lines: 110 From article <3864@altos86.Altos.COM>, by ti@altos86.Altos.COM (Ti Kan): > In article <1990Aug25.014213.17353@fiver> palowoda@fiver (Bob Palowoda) writes: >>From article <3854@altos86.Altos.COM>, by ti@altos86.Altos.COM (Ti Kan): >>>>ti@altos86.Altos.COM (Ti Kan) responds to a flame-ette from Foulk about the >>how Altos fined tune there hardware software that makes it more reliable >>than ISC's or SCO's UNIX (includeing the third party vendors). >> > > Without delving into technical details (and possibly divulging proprietary > information), This is what I think alot of customers want to hear. For example they want to know exactly what makes your disk cacheing/mirroring is better and more reliable than lets say DPT's or someone elses. You have to give the customer something to measure the quality of your product against. > degree of reliability and performance -- given the > time and resources available > -- if we didn't have a specific list of > target hardware configuration. So just how are you going to prove to the customers that you spend more time and resources than lets say SCO or ISC. Can you imagine if you found out you spent less time on the QA than they did. Would your product be less reliable if you found out they did? I was wondering why they came out with those lists anyways. Could it be that they run QA suites on that hardware. And before it got on the list it passed the equivalant of Altos test suites. > number and variety of PC-class hardware on the market that they support > means that they cannot spare as much development effort into all these > nitty gritty optimizations that we could do. "nitty gritty optimizations", what you have dirt in your OS? > In many cases, we as > software engineers can have a say in our hardware design specifications, > so that the software/hardware integration can be more efficiently > implemented. Ahh, something interesting. Details? > You may not find this significant, but in reality it is > an incredible value to be able to simply walk to a different part of > the building and talk to the guy that designed a particular expansion > board, which you are implementing a device driver for. Heck I don't spend that much time. I just pick up the phone and call them even if it's another vendor that is out of the building. > Moreover, our > Software Test and QA team work closely with the engineering team, on > our own target hardware, to ensure that everything in various combinations, > hardware and software, will work reliably together. Some of our software and hardware people go to bed with each other. Don't know if this improves reliablity of our product any but at least there working close. [some stuff deleted] >>> Again, the original point of the discussion was the question why >>> one would choose a box like the Altos 5000 with standard EISA bus >>> and 486 CPU, but with special expansion I/O cards and special UNIX >>> release, over a generic PC with SCO or Interactive UNIX. I think >>> I have made my argument pretty clear. >> >> And your ego! > > I would rather not comment on this, but Tom Yager's follow-up > article on this topic eloquently reinforces my point. I am not > being ego-centric, I'm was commenting on Tom's follow-up. > I am simply an engineer who is proud of his work > and the quality of his company's product. Is there anything wrong > with that? This seems to be about the first important thing you said. "his work" and "his company's product". I really didn't mean to sound like I was flameing. It was just a few short comments I got from reading your article. I was actually more interested in the fine technical details that make Altos 486 ESIA bus computers worth 3 or 4 times more than anyone elses. Hey I might even be a potential customer. My company purchases more 100 386's a year and we are looking at 486 ESIA machines for our memory testers. Let's say the Altos machine performs the best. Than he asks me why. What am I going to say "Ti said they spend more time on QA and development than ISC or SCO did on other products". How about Altos has proprietary hardware/software which makes it more reliable. He's going to want comparison measurements to help him determine performance. The term "reliablity" as seen from the customer and manufacturer is too vauge to get into here. One observation I have made is customers measure reliablity against other competeing products internally and this data is usally hard to get a hold of. If Altos 5000 is in a class by itself than I guess there is nothing to compare it against other than the salesperson's word. If it's not considered a PC class machine competeing against other ESIA bus machines, you maybe in the wrong newsgroup. ---Bob -- Bob Palowoda palowoda@fiver | *Home of Fiver BBS* Home {sun}!ys2!fiver!palowoda | 415-623-8809 1200/2400 {pacbell}!indetech!fiver!palowoda | An XBBS System Work {sun,pyramid,decwrl}!megatest!palowoda| 415-623-8806 1200/2400/19.2k TB+