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From: jlol@REMUS.EE.BYU.EDU (Jay Lawlor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Dream System
Message-ID: <9012111437.AA20428@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 Dec 90 14:37:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jlol@ee.byu.edu
Lines: 89

>>>>> On 11 Dec 90 03:35:47 GMT, bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) said:


Brian> In article <54@gauss.mmlai.UUCP> you write:

> I've posted this so amny other places, I might as well post it here
> too.  We have $150,000 to spend on hardware for a computer graphics
> visualization system.  Currently, we have an Apollo netwrok with about
> 25 nodes.  We're looking to do animation of finite element analysis
> results and CFD stuff.  Obviously, at this dollar level we'll get a lot
> of CPU speed.

> What would you buy? HP, Apollo, SGI, SUN, STARDENT?  How would you
> configure your dream system.


Brian> Usually I agree with what Tony says, but in this case I almost
Brian> completely disagree.  Here's why:

Brian> The *first* rule of computer purchasing is to select the software you
Brian> want to run, then find a computer that runs it.  Fast hardware is
Brian> useless without powerful and flexible software to use it.  *Useless*!

True.

Brian> For a start, compare the size of Sun's SPARCware catalog (about 1200
Brian> pages, three applications per page) with HP's equivalent software
Brian> catalog.  If you can find a close enough match and are happy with the
Brian> HP selections, fine.  Just remember that you are choosing from a
Brian> substantially smaller pool of applications than you would with Sun.

Sun's only saving grace.

Brian> [Tony paraphrased: The HP 800 series with graphics accelleration is
Brian> the fastest machine this week]

Brian> Let's see SPECmarks, not MIPS!  What do MIPS mean when comparing
Brian> between RISC (SPARC) and CISC (800?) architectures?  Let's see
Brian> performance comparisons between equally-priced Sun and HP
Brian> configurations.

Since when was the 800 series CISC?  Sounds like you are a little less
informed than you could be.

> Another marketing secret at HP is the stability of HP-UX, HPs' UNIX
> variant.  Very easy to use, and it works great (as long as you use
> Suns' manuals to figure out UUCP :-)  The local HP support (at least
> for the moment, the recession may change things) is SUPERB!!!!

Brian> As long-time readers of this group know, this is one of my favorite
Brian> complaints about HP workstations.  HP-UX is consistantly behind SunOS
Brian> in terms of features, most notably networking features.

HP's getting better in this area.  You can't catch up all at once.
Otherwise you'd have bug distribution lists the size of Sun's lists.

Brian> Within the first week of getting our new HP 9000/345 workstations with
Brian> the pre-installed software (including X Release 2 - yum-yum), we had
Brian> managed to crash or hang 3 of the 7 machines, at least once.  At the
Brian> time, we were taking particular care not to do anything unreasonable
Brian> on them, as we didn't have backups of the disk (and the OS tapes
Brian> failed upon installation).

Well, we have R3 and are running an R4 server from HP that works great.

Brian> I don't know about Tony's area, but at the University of Florida (the
Brian> premier Florida Engineering University, perhaps one of the big 3 or 4
Brian> in the Southeast) the HP reps are incredibly uninformed about the
Brian> workstation product line.  It is extremely difficult to impossible to
Brian> get such things as patch tapes out of our sales reps.  The
Brian> telephone-based tech support is much better, but usually we have
Brian> questions that go over their heads.  And,they keep referring us to the
Brian> local reps for patch tapes (!)  The local Sun reps are rather more
Brian> clued-in, but perhaps not overwhelmingly so.  However, the existance
Brian> of Sun-manager mailing lists, informal ftp sites for patches, and
Brian> other such net resources makes expert support just 8 hours and a mail
Brian> message away.  I know that HP is attempting to start participating in
Brian> this milieu, but they are very far from there yet.

I guess it depends on where you live.  The ee dept here won't buy any
more Suns because of the "quality" of support they received.  Our HP
support has been much better.

Brian> One last note: anyone who cares to dispute these points should attack
Brian> my facts, not my attitude.

Of course.

-Jay