Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM!thompson From: thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: USENET Letter 2 Message-ID: <9106031638.AA28056@pan.ssec.honeywell.com> Date: 3 Jun 91 16:38:13 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: world Organization: The Internet Lines: 797 OPEN LETTER TO HP/APOLLO HEWLETT-PACKARD, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ITS APOLLO ACQUISITION Background: ----------- When Hewlett Packard and Apollo Computer merged in mid-1989, many people voiced doubts about the continued viability of the Apollo CISC and RISC platforms. HP/Apollo made many presentations stating that there would be continued, long-term support for Domain/OS on current and future merged platforms. HP/Apollo claimed that there would be second generation RISC platforms for both PRISM and PA-RISC, before a merged RISC platform running Domain/OS, HP-UX, and OSF was released in 1992 or 1993. With the announcement of the HP 9000/700 series and the cancellation of PRISM-2, the DN10000 system has become obsolete. For Apollo users who need leading-edge workstations, the Series 700 would be an attractive addition to their Apollo networks, but Hewlett Packard is not providing the Domain Operating System (Domain/OS) for these machines. HP is also failing to provide for a timely, smooth transition to OSF/1. Recent entries in the comp.sys.apollo USENET newsgroup have covered a vast and varied territory. Three major issues have caused concern among Apollo users. We would like Hewlett-Packard to formally reply to those issues. Issue 1 : The future of the DN10000 - Problems ---------------------------------------------- Until recently, most owners of DN10000 systems have been assured that HP/Apollo would provide ongoing upgrades to the series. When it was first introduced, the DN10000 took the lead in workstation speed and cost-effectiveness. At that time, the sales literature made the explicit claim of "PRISM designed to triple performance every two years." The performance of the HP 9000/730 demonstrates that such a claim was technically possible. However, in October 1989 HP unveiled the new PRISM CPU and announced a speed increase of only a factor of two. Recent announcements by third-party software vendors concerning their future support of the PRISM platform made us nervous, but still HP/Apollo was promising the PRISM-2 CPU upgrade that would bring the systems back in line as a high-end compute server. Eventually these assurances turned sour, and recently, HP announced that there would not be a PRISM-2 upgrade, leaving many of us holding an expensive white elephant. Although the DN10000 series was released almost three years ago, and can therefore be called a mature (if not obsolete) technology, many of the systems in place are actually less than two years old, and were marketed as viable, upgradable systems. Depreciating a one to four hundred thousand dollar investment in this short a time period is not acceptable. Cutting off the PRISM upgrades would have been similar to Motorola deciding not to upgrade the 68000 line after its first release, or HP deciding to throw out PA-RISC after one generation. We fully realize that HP needs to merge their two RISC lines, just as they have (very successfully) merged the CISC lines with the 9000/400 series nodes. However, a merger of lines implies that both original products will contribute, and that the end product will be a viable replacement or upgrade to either line. This is not the case with the DN10000 and the 700 series lines. The current incarnation of the 700 series system can not run in the Apollo Token Ring. Few companies can blithely recable their entire building, and this limits the possibility of Apollo sites purchasing the PA-RISC systems in the near future. Even worse, the 700 series nodes cannot execute code written for the DN10000 or other Apollos even after recompilation, unless it was code that would run on any "vanilla-Unix" type platform. It is, bluntly, a Hewlett-Packard node, and not an HP/Apollo node, as advertised. Issue 1 : The future of the DN10000 - Solutions ----------------------------------------------- At minimum, we need to have a replacement path provided to move from the DN10000 systems to the series 700 machines. If HP/Apollo were to offer a free, equivalent-power upgrade to its DN10000 customers, at least some of us would be able to transition from one to the other. This would not, however, satisfy the needs of many users who, for one reason or another, are restricted to Domain/OS for an extended period. A better plan would be for HP/Apollo to make a PA-RISC CPU board for the current DN10000 systems, so that we can still utilize the disks, memory, and other peripherals that are on our current systems. The DN10000 system is a very elegant parallel processing system. The single-CPU solution that the 700 series offers is not sufficient for those of us who have single-node software licenses, but wish to run several jobs in parallel (and at full speed). A multi-CPU PA-RISC system in a DN10000 would be helpful in many respects. It would allow us to utilize internal disks and tape drives currently in the DN10000, and it would provide a partial fulfillment of Hewlett-Packard's commitment to the DN10000 series. This would not satisfy all of our requirements, but would provide a minimum response to our needs. It would also provide a basis for the first multi-processor, second-generation PA-RISC system. Making an Apollo system upgradable to a parallel PA-RISC system might also convince us that HP/Apollo is serious about making PA-RISC an Apollo as well as an HP solution. Several companies are waiting for responses from their software vendors on the resolution of this issue. Mentor Graphics has stated that they will not support the DN10000 with their next software release, and that we will be "taken care of to our satisfaction." Until this issue is resolved by Hewlett-Packard, these vendors won't be able to clearly define what this means. Issue 2 : Support of Domain/OS - Problems ----------------------------------------- Even more critical to our needs than a particular hardware platform is a reliable, supported operating system and software environment. The O/S group within Apollo has almost always managed to provide extensive backward compatibility within Aegis and Domain/OS. Indeed, the entire Apollo network concept is based on transparency of the network and of the individual machine. When the DN10000 was introduced, there were concerns about the transparency possible between RISC and CISC machines on the same network. Basically, people doubted that Domain/OS would be the same on both platforms. Apollo did a very impressive job of making the differences minimal. The O/S installation tools themselves were made into compound executables (cmpexe). If a site had a single DN10000 with no media device, there wasn't a problem; the administrator could simply install the software using another node's tape drive. The O/S and other Apollo software could be merged together to form cmpexe objects for many of the products. Although it was not glamorous, one site actually booted a DN10000 diskless off a DN3000 in order to repair and reload the DN10000's disks without continually booting from cartridge tape. The benefits from this hardware transparency are obvious -- programs written for the CISC nodes could be ready to run almost immediately, and show a tremendous increase in performance; the current file systems could be accessed in a transparent, logical, and consistent manner; client-server Domain/OS programs could exchange information just as easily between the CISC and RISC platforms as they had before in a CISC <-> CISC exchange. The HP Series 700 workstations, however, will not support Domain/OS. Moreover, the initial release will not support OSF/1. Until OSF/1 becomes stable on the PA-RISC system, and applications are ported to OSF/1, the only operating system that could be used is HP-UX. However, HP-UX does not interact with Domain/OS better than any other vendors' Unix implementations. The learning-curve for an operating system is at least a year, yet HP-UX would be used at Apollo sites for no more than two years. This creates an unacceptably high personnel cost for system administration. Even if it weren't, the lack of an acceptable level of interaction between Domain/OS and HP-UX makes it almost impossible for many Apollo networks to include the new 700 series workstations. Issue 2 : Support of Domain/OS - Solutions ------------------------------------------ Ideally, we need to have the 700 series workstation run Domain/OS, in an Apollo Token Ring (as well as in an ethernet) environment. Hewlett-Packard's decision to not port Domain/OS to the new RISC platform implies an extreme indifference to the needs of its Apollo customers. According to rumor, HP/Apollo engineers have already ported at least part of Domain/OS to the PA-RISC architecture. If this is true, a dedicated, concerted effort might still be able to produce a Domain/OS release that would allow us to transition to the next generation RISC platform, either as the 700 series or as CPU upgrades to the current DN10000 systems. Failing this, we need to see an intensive effort to make OSF/1 available and stable as an O/S platform, and immediate modifications made to Domain/OS to allow interoperability between the current Domain/OS systems and OSF/1. A minimal level of interoperability would include the registry services, proper file-sharing (in its current state, NFS is not acceptable to a Domain/OS user), and at least limited inter-system status information (the Unix remote shell 'rsh' is also not acceptable to most Domain/OS users). These 'hooks' must be made available in the immediate future, not in late 1991 or in 1992. With the useful life of a workstation continually decreasing, it will make little sense for us to purchase systems that are (technology-wise) a year old. Issue 3 : The transition to OSF - Problems ------------------------------------------ OSF is being touted by HP/Apollo (and admittedly by others as well) as being the latest, greatest, standardest operating system to come around. HP is also saying that it will have all the nice features that make us like Domain/OS so much. Unfortunately, when pressed, it comes out that OSF will not have many of the 'Domain-isms' that endeared Apollo to us in the first place, and that kept us with Apollo all this time. These include (but are certainly not limited to) file-typing, user-definable filetypes, PADs, truly transparent file systems, the Apollo display manager with all its capabilities, and the "automagic" networking provided by Domain/OS. Specific networking tools include the node-name cataloguer (ns_helper), disk-space monitors (lvolfs -all), status monitors (ps //nodename, pst -n //node, and dspst -n //node), and node-configuration monitors (nodestat -c). In acquiring Apollo Computer, HP gained a team of people who are very familiar with networking issues and solutions. Hewlett Packard needs to capitalize on this knowledge by providing a superior set of networking tools for OSF. Hewlett Packard representatives do not recognize that the qualities of Domain/OS are often significantly better than OSF/1. They describe OSF/1 as having Domain tools, such as Task Broker. In point of fact, Task Broker is an HP-UX tool ported to Domain/OS, that can require (automatic) file transfers to the remote system. In contrast, all files in a Domain/OS cluster are available to any node. After hearing that, we begin to question what other parts of OSF may be mis-represented. HP also does not seem to fully appreciate the features of the Apollo display manager (DM) that they are replacing. HP-VUE is evidently a very impressive graphical interface, but it will need these Domain features before many Apollo users will willingly transition to it. These include the file-backed output transcripts, 'cooked' input (as an optional input mechanism) with infinite undo, the ability to drive the DM with text input from the prompt, and the ability to bind keys to those same commands. (For example, it is easy to bind a key to go into the output pad, search up for the last 'cc' command, paste that command into the input pad, and execute the line. This particular example can be semi-duplicated with the 'history' mechanism, but many other commands cannot be imitated at all.) There are many opinions on what features are "best" in a window manager, but the uniformity of commands over the full range of windows (edit, output, and input) and an easily used, intuitive interface are probably near the top of most people's lists. The DM is not just a window manager with an editor attached; it is a consistent, well designed manager of the input and output devices for all processes running on an Apollo workstation. Many of its capabilities have been mentioned earlier, but it is important to stress that the consistent behavior of the DM throughout the entire user interface is extremely important. Issue 3 : The transition to OSF - Solutions ------------------------------------------- Most of us have come to the conclusion that we will need to transition to OSF. HP/Apollo could ease this transition by providing a Domain/OS release in the immediate future that would allow interaction with OSF. Coupled with a stable OSF release on the 700 series, this might even provide an acceptable alternative to porting Domain/OS to the PA-RISC platform. If full interaction is not possible in the immediate future, an incremental implementation starting with registry and file services would allow some of us to begin transitioning, and would provide assurance to the rest of us that we will not be abandoned. It must be stressed that this interaction with Domain/OS must be provided to allow for a transition, and that it must be provided in a timely fashion, since this is an industry where even six months can obsolete hardware. It also must be noted that there are many HP/Apollo customers who will not be able to begin a transition to OSF in the near future. These customers need to run Domain/OS, and will need to have Domain/OS ported to the 9000/700 platform before they will purchase the new workstations. Extensions to the OSF solution are essential to the success of HP/Apollo. As a minimum, HP/Apollo should offer an extended Motif and HP-VUE for its OSF product. These extensions would provide the advanced capabilities to which Apollo users have become accustomed (see the above section), and would result in an added-value product that would be better than the standard, while still embracing the OSF standard. HP/Apollo should also investigate the modification of the DM to run within OSF. At SR10.3, the DM was modified to be "Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) compliant, which means it is a fair X client." This implies that extensive work has already been done to ensure that the DM can function in an X environment. This should ease any transition to an OSF operating system as well. Ongoing support is also needed for the current hardware. HP/Apollo must support the keyboards that are currently in use. HP/Apollo must also continue to provide keyboards with the 'Domain' keys on them (with appropriate bindings). A very useful capability of Apollo systems has been the extensive, user-definable keyboard they have provided. Although productivity is often enhanced by the use of a mouse, it is very possible to run Domain/OS without ever removing your fingers from the keyboard. This is possible due to the vast key-definition capability provided by the DM. The current HP/Apollo justification for not augmenting OSF's abilities -- that "standard is better" -- is unacceptable. It is the capabilities of the machine, and the user environment, that are most important in making purchases. Providing a set of tools that is no better than Dec's or IBM's will provide no incentive to stay with HP/Apollo, or even with OSF. Providing full interoperability with other OSF machines, while providing added capability when interfaced with other HP/Apollo systems, and/or providing additional tools in HP/Apollo's OSF offering will give us the justification we need. Standards are essential, but better is better even when it is not a standard. Extensions to HP OSF/1 with 'Domain-ism' will be an added value to HP's workstations in the market place and distinguish Hewlett-Packard from the rest of the OSF crowd. Standards should never be used as an excuse for not providing the best tools. Conclusion ---------- Hewlett Packard has again released a top-end workstation with the 9000/700 series product line. Now, it must provide the means for its Apollo customers to use these workstations in the Domain/OS environment, and provide an upgrade or transition for the owners of the Apollo DN10000 systems. If we are forced to move from Domain/OS to HP-UX or OSF without a smooth transition (jumping from one moving train to another is not 'smooth'), then we will start from scratch in our workstation vendor search. Without Domain/OS (or interoperability with Domain/OS), HP's machines are just like anyone else's. Unless we can depend on HP/Apollo to support our transitions, we will not be able to rely on its products at all. We hope that Hewlett-Packard will accept this critique in the same positive spirit with which we have prepared it, and will act quickly to fulfill our three requests. Individual replies are not expected: as we have used the USENET as a public forum for the gathering of this information, so would we enjoy hearing HP/Apollo's response in this group. Disclaimer ---------- This document was written with input from numerous people. While all signatories support its aims and general thrust, not everyone is necessarily in complete agreement on the details of all points. The views expressed are those of individuals, and do not in general represent official policy of the institutions or companies of which the signatories are members. (This should not be taken as a license to discount those views, however: in the long run the individual views of computer users and system managers tend to affect or even determine institutional computing policy and purchasing decisions.) Signatories ----------- John Thompson - Design Services Engineer / System Administrator Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441 thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2604 Honeywell SSEC has about 70 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10000s. I am concerned with all of the issues, as I must maintain a functional network which meets the H/W and S/W needs of Honeywell SSEC projects. ****************************************************************************** Kent Kuriyama / Electrical Engineer Voice (808) 257-1618 Naval Ocean Systems Center FAX (808) 257-1685 Hawaii Laboratory Box 997, Code 531 kent@nosc.mil Kailua, HI 96734 NOSC HI has 4 Apollo workstations. I am concerned about the lack of Domain OS support on the series 700. Failing a 700 series port of Domain we need interoperability with OSF/1 to ease transition problems. ****************************************************************************** Herb Peyrel UUCP: herb@ajfcal.UUCP || #define Janitor Administrator I brew, therefore I am.. || Apollo System_Janitor, NovAtel Communications "I spilled spot remover on my dog and now he's gone..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I administer a network of 84 Domain/OS workstations comprising mostly of DN3550's with some DN4500's, DN3000's, HP9000s4xx's, and 2 DN100x0's. I also am responsible for an additional 10 HP9000s3xx's running HP-UX. ****************************************************************************** Paolo Petta (paolo%ai-vie.uucp@relay.eu.net), Dept. Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, Univ.of Vienna & Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Vienna, Austria, Europe. (26 DN3000 + 3 DN5500, SR10.3 BSD4.3) ****************************************************************************** Christian Schuh Systems Analyst Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. 755 College Road East Princeton, NJ 08540 I administer two Apollo Tokenring Networks, with appr. 30 workstations including a DN10020 ****************************************************************************** Ashleigh Quick | ACSnet: AGQ@dstos3.dsto.oz Defence Science and Technology Organisation| Internet: AGQ@dstos3.dsto.oz.au PO Box 1600 | Phone: (Intl) (+61 8) 259 6975 Salisbury 5108 | (Local) (08) 259 6975 Australia | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- My organisation has about 70 Apollo workstations which run software from a wide range of vendors. We rely heavily on Domain/Os for our current and future Operating system support. ****************************************************************************** Alisdair Craig Computer Infrastructure Manager Engineering Design Research Centre - United Kingdom We purchased 25 Apollo workstation including DN10040 to provide a complete phase 1 research infrastructure. This massive investment is now being considerably reduced in value. ****************************************************************************** Dipl.-Ing. Lutz Jaenicke, electrical engineer Assistant in Research and Education, system-administration Institut fuer Elektrische Maschinen, Technische Universitaet Berlin Einsteinufer 11, D-1000 Berlin 10, jaenicke@w414zrz.ee.tu-berlin.de System: DN10000; Please, don't forget about the DN10000, we spent lots of money to get a highest performance number-cruncher. ****************************************************************************** Mike Peterson, System Administrator, University of Toronto Department of Chemistry, E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca Tel: (416) 978-7094 We have 2 DN580, 1 DN2500, 1 DN4500, 1 DN10020. We are especially concerned about the DN10000 "future" (i.e. the lack thereof), and the paltry "trade-up" program that is in place. ****************************************************************************** Tim Schneider Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division CAE Project Engineer (Digital Simulation and Modeling) Phone:(602) 436-3078 US Mail: P.O. Box 21111 M/S K26E2 Phoenix, AZ 85036 Inet: timsc@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com UUCP: uunet!asuvax!apciphx!hwcae!timsc 123 Apollo/Hp Workstations (3 dn10000's, 31 hp400 series the rest dn3xxx dn4xxx Apollo's) ****************************************************************************** Dr. A.A. Rademakers - Application Software Group, CN Division, CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, 1123 Geneve, Switzerland. CERN has about 200 Apollo workstation, including more than 20 DN10000s. I am especially concerned with the loss of DM functionality on the 9000/700 series. ****************************************************************************** Luigi Sarti - Researcher Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche - Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche Via all'Opera Pia, 11 - 16145 GENOVA - ITALY sarti@ice.ge.cnr.it ****************************************************************************** Roger Lindell - Research Engineer / System Administrator Dept. of Speech Communication and Music Acoustics, Royal Institute of Technology || Box 70014, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden rog@speech.kth.se || +46 8 7907573 The Dept. has 12 Apollo Workstations, including 1 DN10000. ****************************************************************************** Paul Szabo - System Manager // School of Mathematics and Statistics szabo_p@maths.su.oz.au // University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia The School has almost 150 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s. We need a uniform user interface across the network. Many of our nodes will not ever go to OSF so continued support for Domain/OS and smooth interoperability are essential until the whole of the network can be upgraded to OSF. ****************************************************************************** R. T. Pierrehumbert, Professor in Geophysical Sciences Dept. of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago. rtp1@midway.uchicago.edu I currently have one DN10000, and have recently purchased an IBM RS/6000 system. I am principal investigator of our NSF Science and Technology Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate, and have responsibility for setting up a computational facility for this center. I am also a member of the University's Committee on High Performance Computing, which is currently seeking a solution for the University of Chicago's strategic computing needs. ****************************************************************************** Dave Schmidt - Scientist / System Administration Naval Ocean Systems Center | San Diego, Ca. 92138 schmidtd@peanuts.nosc.mil | (619) 553 - 1664 Currently managing about 60 apollos. ****************************************************************************** Motorola Incorporated Barry R. Spotts Semiconductor System Design Technology 3501 Ed Bluestein Boulevard Austin, Texas 78721 Internal Address: spotts@ssdt-bluestein MailDrop: M-2 UUCP Address: spotts@ssdt-bluestein.sps.mot.com (512) 928-6630 ****************************************************************************** Tony John, Contract Engineer Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems 612-785-4256 MN51-1320 8840 Evergreen Blvd. tjohn@gumby.cfsmo.honeywell.com Coon Rapids, MN 55433 At CFS we have 25 HP/Apollo systems including a DN10020. We need the performance of the DN10020 in a Domain/OS environment. I don't believe that HP listens to their customers any more. Especially not their Apollo customers. HP has killed Apollo. ****************************************************************************** Kee Hinckley, Vice President Alfalfa Software Inc 185 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA 02138 nazgul@alfalfa.com 617/497-2922 Alfalfa is an ISV of Electronic Mail Systems for X/Unix platforms. Prior to the formation of Alfalfa several of us were part of the group responsible for Apollo's User Environment. ****************************************************************************** Roger G. Booth, Systems Engineer | (619) 581-6181 Systems Engineering Asscoiates | rbooth@sea.com 2204 Garnet St. #203 | rbooth@nprdc.navy.mil San Diego, CA 92109 Under contract to navy client, I maintain and upgrade network of 16 apollos. On my recommendation, he plans to move from DN3500 to HP 9000/425t. ****************************************************************************** James R. Spitzenberger - Layout Engineer Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441 spitz@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2915 I share responsibility in determining the viability of hardware and software to be used by the layout group with Hardware Services. There are 9 nodes used by the layout group. I am very concerned with all of these issues. ****************************************************************************** Jeff Hildebrand - Design Automation Engineer Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center - Plymouth Minnesota hildebrand@pan.ssec.honeywell.com I am concerned with the productivity loss that will be experienced when we need to migrate off Domain/OS if there is not a well developed migration strategy to OSF. ****************************************************************************** Eric Bushnell, System Administrator University of Washington etb@u.washington.edu "Frustrated by the lack of Domain/OS support for the 9000/700, and sympathetic to DN10000 owners." ****************************************************************************** Reynaldo W. Newman Mgr, Engineering Systems Titan Linkabit 3033 Science Park Rd. San Diego, CA - 92121 ****************************************************************************** Larry E. Smith - CAD/CAM Analyst/System Administrator |S1074/SRL Ford Motor Co., Scientific Research Laboratories |Dearborn, MI smithl@apollo.srl.ford.com |48187 Supporting 80 Apollo workstations including 6 DN10000s.|313-337-3123 (This is my opinion and not necessarily my company's.) | ****************************************************************************** Alan Scheinine, Physics Graduate Student and Apollo System Admin. University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 u10534@uy.ncsa.uiuc.edu A small group with a four-processor DN10K. Learning to administer Domain/OS was costly in time. Learning HP-UX during an interim period will waste the time of grad students that only get respect for doing physics. A white elephant is too costly to feed, which describes the DN10K service agreement. ****************************************************************************** Clemens Rihaczek ISD (Department for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures) University of Stuttgart fax: +49 711-685-3706 7000 Stuttgart 80, Germany. voice: +49 711-685-3899 Internet: rihaczek@dogmatix.luftfahrt.uni-stuttgart.de (129.69.110.10) We have one DN10040 (4 CPU's, 128MB, 2.8GB), one DN10020 (2CPU's, 16MB, 1.4GB, VS-Graphics), twenty DN3500's, and four DN2500's. We have been amused by HP's offer of a DM 7000.-- rebate on a HP9000/700 for turning in a DN10000. We have started shopping other vendors. ****************************************************************************** = Daryl Winters Project Manager, SoftBench Licensing = = Hewlett-Packard winters@hpfcbozo.sde.hp.com = = Software Engineering Systems winters@apollo.hp.com = = 3404 East Harmony Road dwinters@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu = = Ft. Collins, CO 80525 (303) 229-6828 = As an ex-Apollo employee, I am interested in supporting loyal Apollo customers ****************************************************************************** Mike Muegel | Internet: mmuegel@mot.com Software Tools Group | UUCP: uunet!motcid!muegel Fort Worth Research & Development Center | Internal: TX14/1C Cellular Infrastructure Group | Voice: (817) 232-6129 Radio Telephone Systems Group | Fax: (817) 232-6081 We have approximately 140 nodes here. The fact that the new 700 box does not support Domain/OS is very disconcerting. ****************************************************************************** Jim Rees Institutional File System Project University of Michigan ****************************************************************************** Kenneth Van Riper - Physicist / Astronomer / System Administrator Los Alamos National Laboratory || (X-6, MS B226 / PO BOX 1663 kvr@lanl.gov || Los Alamos, NM 87544 ) I have invested a lot of time in learning DOMAIN/OS and programming using DOMAIN/AEGIS calls. I do not wish to throw it all away. ****************************************************************************** Th. Herbert, Professor Mech. Eng. Dept. The Ohio State Univ. 206 W. 18th Ave. Columbus, OH 43210 (614) 292-2902 tht@apollo.eng.ohio-state.edu ****************************************************************************** Ch. Hawley, Systems Programmer Mech. Eng. Dept. The Ohio State Univ. 206 W. 18th Ave. Columbus, OH 43210 (614) 292-3904 crh@renoir.eng.ohio-state.edu ****************************************************************************** Hans Chr Nielsen - Programmer Sysdeco A/S || Chr Michelsens gt 65, 0474 Oslo 4 hcn@sysdeco.no || Norway 02 38 30,90 We develop the 4GL SYSTEMATOR and standard applications on about 25 Apollo workstations and one DN10000. We use DSEE in the development and also to generate versions on a wide range of platforms. ****************************************************************************** Peter Yardley - Computer Systems Administrator Computer Systems Engineering School of Electrical Engineering University of Technology, Sydney | +61-2-218-9385 Australia | petery@uts.edu.au HP must provide ongoing support for it's Apollo customers. ****************************************************************************** Ken Smelcer -- Glenayre Electronics -- Quincy, IL System Admin/Software Engineer -- quintro!kts@lll-winken.llnl.gov Glenayre has a Token-Ring network of 21 DN2500/3000/3500/4000/400t machines. I am very concerned about the lack of Apollo support for the 700 series, especially in the areas of Domain/OS and Token-Ring networking. ****************************************************************************** Doug Vander Wilt, CAD/CAM Engineer, MICRO SWITCH Division of Honeywell dwv@cadnet.micro.honeywell.com (815)235-6615 ****************************************************************************** Tony Honchar, CAD/CAM Engineering Manager, MICRO SWITCH Division of Honeywell thh@cadnet.micro.honeywell.com (815)235-6829 ****************************************************************************** Ted Vriezen - Design Automation Engineer Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center || Plymouth, MN 55441 vriezen@pan.ssec.honeywell.com || (612) 541-2661 ****************************************************************************** -- Paul Goldsmith (514) 848-3031 Concordia Computer Science has a four node Apollo network and has purchased many more Suns, DEC, etc ... since the HP/Apollo merger. Mediocrity is not a selling point. It is also noteworthy that there are no remaining Apollo people in the HP-Canada organization. ****************************************************************************** Paul Ashton Beckman Instruments Inc. phone: (714) 993-8416 Diagnostic Systems Group fax: (714) 961-4126 200 S. Kraemer Blvd Internet: p_ashton@dsg4.dse.beckman.com Brea, California 92621 Approx 160 HP/Apollo workstations (hp400, dn3xxx,4xxx, dn10K (1)) ****************************************************************************** David J. Young - CAE Support Engineer / System Administrator Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division Phoenix AZ 85036 davidy@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com (602) 436-1311 Honeywell ATSD has 88 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10020s. I am *very* concerned with all of these issues, since I must administer a network to sup- ports Honeywell ATSD projects, and don't like what is happening to the Apollo. ****************************************************************************** Steven C. Mikes - Hardware/Software Engineer and System Administrator Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena,CA 91109 smikes@kathy.jpl.nasa.gov (818) 354-9732 I only have two Apollo workstations, but find that given the choice, I prefer to use them over any other machine I have. Without Domain/OS and the Display Manager, I might as well save money and buy a Sun. ****************************************************************************** Augusto Chioccariello - Researcher Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche - Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche Via all'Opera Pia, 11 - 16145 GENOVA - ITALY augusto@ice.ge.cnr.it 3 DN4000 + 1 400 ****************************************************************************** Paul Schenk | University of Victoria | CERN PPE / OPAL pschenk%cernapo@cernvax.cern.ch <- Pref. pschenk@cernvm.cern.ch schenk@uvvm.bitnet OPAL is one of four large particle physics experiments at the new CERN electron-positron collider. We use apollo DN10000s in our online data aquisition and reconstruction tasks. We had counted on upgrading these machines, now with that possibility gone we will have to consider other multiprocessing alternatives. Without the DM, the Domain filesystem and the transparent registries, there is nothing holding us to a single vendor. ****************************************************************************** Philip Pokorny - Software Support Engineer/System Administrator Cummins Electronics, Inc. philip@cel.cummins.com Columbus, IN 47201 (812)377-5161 I support a group of about 40 software engineers working with DSEE on Apollo workstations. The primary environment is Aegis. I'm concerned about continuing support for DSEE and Aegis on new hardware. (ie. 700) ****************************************************************************** /\/\ Robin Brown / / /\ System Administrator - Unix Systems and CAD/CAM/CAE / / / \ Computer Systems Group / / / /\ \ BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories \ \/ / / / 245 Wellington Rd Mulgrave Vic 3170 AUSTRALIA \ / / / Phone : +61-3-560-7066, Fax : +61-3-561-6709 \/\/\/ E-mail : robinb@resmel.bhp.com.au PSImail : psi%austpac.0505235633005::robinb ****************************************************************************** Gregory Rocco - design engineer (ICs, boards and systems)/System Admin MIT Lincoln Laboratory; PO box 73; Lexington, MA 02173-9108 Chairman, Mentor Graphics user's group email: rocco@ll.mit.edu voice:617-981-3419 FAX:617-981-0721 The 700 series looks like a very nice box, too bad I have to wait a long time before using it (do not want to run HP-UX). Would really like support of ATR. ****************************************************************************** Jinfu Chen, Senior Software Engineer Logic IC Division, Motorola, Inc., Mesa, AZ85202 chen@digital.sps.mot.com, (602)898-5338 Our division has over 80 Apollo DN series and 20 HP 9000/400 series work- stations. A large portions of our internal developed software are still running on SR9.7. We'd love to make a big jump to use HP's 9000/700 series running OSF/1 if HP can provide sufficient transition aids. ****************************************************************************** Jeff O'Neil - Director Advanced Systems ARCO Oil and Gas Company, Research & Technical Services Plano, TX 75075 || (214) 754-3959 || jco@arco.com On site we have 14 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s. The HP/Apollo Dallas office is quite aware of my concerns on these issues, many of which are reflected in this letter. ****************************************************************************** Dave Schmidt - Scientist / System Administration Naval Ocean Systems Center | San Diego, Ca. 92138 schmidtd@peanuts.nosc.mil | (619) 553 - 1664 Currently managing about 60 apollos. ****************************************************************************** Graham Clarke. Computer Technical Officer. Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, Essex, England. e-mail: clarg@uk.ac.essex, telephone: (0206) 872340 or +44 206 872340 We have a mixture of Apollo DN3000,3500,4500 and HP 9000/400 series running Domain/OS 10.3 and 9.7 a total of thirteen machines. ****************************************************************************** Stein Ullaland - Professor Dept. of Physics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Phone: +47 5 212749 Stein.Ullaland@cc.uib.no 15 Apollo/HP workstations including 1 DN10000 ****************************************************************************** Magne Havag - Senior Engineer/System Administrator Dept. of Physics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Phone: +47 5 212755 nfymh@cc.uib.no 15 Apollo/HP workstations including 1 DN10000 ****************************************************************************** Sebastian Wangnick basti@orthogo.uucp Orthogon System GmbH Tel: +49 421 219136 Linzer Strasse 4 Fax: +49 421 213093 D-2800 Bremen 33 Germany Orthogon developes software for and is consultor of the european air-traffic control agency Eurocontrol and its members throughout europe, which all have a vast amount of apollos running. They don't have access to even email, but from discussions I conclude they share the opinions expressed in this letter. ****************************************************************************** Colin Dente dente@manchester.ac.uk Manchester Computing Centre TEL: +44-61-273-3286 University of Manchester FAX: +44-61-274-3889 Oxford Road, Manchester UK The University of Manchester runs many Apollo Domain/OS systems, primarily for CAD/CASE work both for teaching and research, as well as many HP-UX systems. My experience with the HP-UX systems has shown them not to be a viable alternative to Domain/OS, and, therefore, I am extremely anxious that OSF/1 WITH DOMAIN FEATURES be available on 700 series machines very soon. ****************************************************************************** Nicholas M Wosika - Senior Support Specialist Honeywell Industrial Automation & Controls || Minneapolis, MN 55418 nwosika@ssdc.honeywell.com || (612) 782-7123 ****************************************************************************** Mike J. Chew - System Administrator Honeywell -- Air Transport Systems Division Phoenix AZ 85036 chew@hwcae.cfsat.honeywell.com (602) 436-1311 Honeywell ATSD has 88 Apollo workstations, including 3 DN10020s. I am *very* concerned with all of these issues. Since I'm responsible for the budgeting and acquisition of CAE/CAD workstation equipment in ATSD these issues have a direct bearing on which platforms we'll use in the future. The DN10000's were recent purchases and I'm not happy with it's limited life compared to RISC workstations from HP's competitors. ****************************************************************************** -Darryl Bergstrom Apollo/Symbolics/News/Mail Administrator -Honeywell SRC/SSDC IS Minneapolis, MN -bergstr@ssdc.honeywell.com -45 Apollos: 10 425's, 10 DN4000's, 1 DN3500, 24 DN3000's ****************************************************************************** Jeff O'Neil - Director Advanced Systems ARCO Oil and Gas Company, Research & Technical Services Plano, TX 75075 || (214) 754-3959 || jco@arco.com On site we have 14 Apollo workstations, including 2 DN10000s. The HP/Apollo Dallas office is quite aware of my concerns on these issues, many of which are reflected in this letter. ****************************************************************************** Willie Krongard Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems wtk@gumby.cfsmo.honeywell.com ******************************************************************************