Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!neuro.usc.edu!annala From: annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: SCO UNIX VMS and ULTRIX on new DEC product line Message-ID: <29029@usc> Date: 26 Dec 90 08:56:23 GMT References: <29014@usc> <2777E87B.6392@tct.uucp> <29027@usc> Sender: news@usc Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 40 Nntp-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu In article <2777E87B.6392@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >According to annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala): >>According to DEC's advertisement in Computer Reseller News, the new >>DEC 433MP System (1 to 6 coupled i486 CPU's, 64 MB global shared memory >>64 MB/s system bus, 1.2 GB internal hard disk) will not run any variety >>of VMS (or even ULTRIX) -- INSTEAD IT WILL RUN SCO UNIX!!! >Well, of course it won't run VMS. VMS is coded in VAX assembler. My friends tell me most of VMS is coded in a DEC proprietary language called BLISS. BLISS exists for PDP-11's, PDP-10's, and VAXen -- DEC could have chosen to write a new BLISS compiler for the 80386 -- but that is not what happened -- instead, DEC adopted SCO UNIX for their new machine. Moreover, in the process, DEC abandoned it's own ULTRIX (DEC proprietary version of UNIX) in order to adopt SCO UNIX. >>As far as SCO UNIX being difficult to deal with, you might consider my >>experience with this system. I am a biologist - not a system programmer. >A user who doesn't do anything complicated with system administration, >or who has no history of system administration with other UNIX >systems, will not fully appreciate SCO's "C2" for the botch it is. It >makes things hard that used to be easy, and it makes impossible things >that used to be possible. I have installed the base operating system, development system, and tcp/ip on a completely uninitialized machine with only guidance from a reference manual. I created user accounts - downloaded, compiled, and installed gcc and emacs in the appropriate directories - wrote a device driver for the Data Translation QuickCapture frame grabber - downloaded and am now making appropriate changes to install a SUN UNIX based image processing system. I make periodic backup tapes. I am happy with the system. My users are happy with the system. Living within C2 guidelines is causing us no real grief. What more do you want from SCO UNIX? The fact you have to change some of your habits to fit within the current security framework should not drive so many complaints. Computer systems change -- we have to change with them -- if people didn't accept the need for change we would all still be writing machine code for monolithic IBM 7090's with no operating system, no compilers, and no interactive access. Take a hint from the biological sciences: we must evolve or die.