Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rphroy!caen!uwm.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!RICHTER.MIT.EDU!krowitz
From: krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re:  DM Like Editor written for X -> Wanted
Message-ID: <9103291546.AA08208@richter.mit.edu>
Date: 29 Mar 91 15:46:55 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 56

Sigh! I wanted an X, Motiff, Open Look, whatever, editor to be included
in HP/Apollo's HP Vue for a long time. So has Doug Eltof, the ADUS president,
so have a few thousand other Apollo users. We have asked, we have pleaded,
we have made it an item in the engineering directives session of the annual
ADUS conference for a couple of years running ... and we get no action. We've
asked for it to be included in the base OSF offering (so that HP could not make
the argument that "it wouldn't be standard" -- like HP Vue is standard!) -- and
we get no response.

At my department of MIT everyone is going over to Sun's, the Apollo users included.
As soon as they get on them, the first question they ask is, "how can we get an
Apollo-like editor and window manager?" I tell them they can't -- the Apollo's
editor is built into the window manager, which is why we have global cut,copy, and
paste functions on every application program -- not just those X applications who
happen to implement these functions. Then they ask me to write a simple, Apollo-like
editor just for work with a single file, and I turn them down because it's not my
job (yet) to take care of the Suns -- I've got my hands full with the Apollos. Then
they ask why all the professors are buying Suns instead of Apollos, and I answer that
the Apollo DM window manager and the integrated editor are going to be going away
anyhow -- that HP has made it *real* clear that GPR, the transcript pads, the DM, 
and all the other non-X, non-Motiff, non-HP Vue features are slated for the scrap
heap. I explain that the latest HP/Apollo hardware will not run Domain/OS (not
even SR11), only HP-UX and OSF so that buying new Apollo gear will not help the
situation.

They go away unhappy ... to their Sun Sparcstations. Which they are buying 
because that is what everyone else in geology, geophysics, physical oceanography,
and meteorology is buying -- because at least they will have 100% compatibility
with their collegue's machine even if it doesn't have the features they want --
because they can't even get the features they want from HP.

Write HP and APR. Yes, I know that HP tends to ignore APR's or to give flipant
answers like "we meant to remove this useful feature, therefore it's not a
problem" ... but if no one speaks up except the 30 or 40 really pushy people
who tend to corner Rose O'Donnell (hi, Rose! ;-) ) each year at the ADUS
conference, then HP thinks that the DM editor functions are only of importance
to a bunch of crufty, old, Aegis users who don't buy enough machines to be
of any importance. Write an APR. Write a letter addressed to HP management 
in addition (so they can't ignore just the APR). Get your co-workers to
write additional APR's and letters. Get your friends to write them. Send
*seperate* copies. Bury them in paper until they get the idea. If you do not
know to whom to send your letter, send me a copy and I (as ADUS VP for special
interest groups with the responsibility for the engineering directions session
at the up coming ADUS conference) will personally forward the letters to
Jack Novia. Make the letter's short and to the point ... "I want DM style
editing on all future HP offerings. Without this feature, HP has no value
added over other similar X-Windows based Unix offerrings ..."

If only twenty letters get written, it won't count. If two hundred get
written, it will make an impression.

== David M. Krowitz
   ADUS VP for SIG's
   MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Dept.
   room 54-527
   Cambridge, MA 02139