Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!bcstec!ruben From: ruben@bcstec.boeing.com (Reuben Wachtfogel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Apollo Miscellany Keywords: Apollo, Questions Message-ID: <912@bcstec.boeing.com> Date: 5 Jun 91 04:07:24 GMT Article-I.D.: bcstec.912 Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle Lines: 111 Apollo Miscellany I've been working on apollo for 4 years now and overall, I've enjoyed the experience. Some thoughts, technical questions, etc.. to share with anyone who's interested. 1) At the ADUS conference in New Orleans, the first after Apollo became HP/Apollo, the subject of doing away with AEGIS came up. The uproar was quite significant. At a subsequent conference the subject of not supporting OSF on most Apollo platforms came up. Again an uproar with the result that now we get OSF but we can forget about DOMAIN O/S. Also, HP gets to send everyone letters titled "We listened to YOU !" Now I'm not saying good or bad, but it occurs to me that if HP WANTED to do away with DOMAIN O/S, they couldn't have picked a better strategy. By threatening not to give us the new stuff, we practicaly begged them to dump support for DOMAIN OS. AHA. Eets Ze old if they want the new stuff, they can't have support for the old stuff ploy. Whatever happened to good old buzzwords like "upgrade path". Maybe I'm just nachully too suspicious but time will tell if we've sold the cow for a handfull of rotted beans. Sure, sure, standards make life easier in the long run but If Mom were here wouldn't she say something like, "If the standard said to jump off a cliff, would you do that too ?" Will HP/Apollo at least offer documentation for suggested OSF alternatives to DOMAIN/OS sytem calls where applicable ? Let me know if I'm completely off-base here. I may be missing something (e.g. like a screw or two). 2) How come that bug I reported never got fixed ? I don't know if it's strictly a domain dialog problem but my Hi-Res colors nodes (F-series) have been freezing up since 10.0 every now and then when the cursor leaves the dialog window. About 6 seconds later the screen blinks out, comes back, and the input buffer (which by now has overflowed) starts spitting mouse and keyboard events all over the place. 3) Why do my black and white dn3000s feel faster than my F-series 4500s, and why does everybody at APOLLO look at me funny when I say so. I'm not crazy... I'm not... get away from me... I hate nets... I hate em... 4) Why does tone_$time(1000) crash the node. I know it's a bug, but gee that's kind of harsh. 5) Why does GPR exit full-screen mode when you hit control-Q even though you have those signals ignored. The only way I've found to do this is with the now unsupported smd_$set_quit_char(0, status); - I think I tried removing it from the gpr_enable_input keyset with no luck but I wouldn't swear to it. - I haven't tried zeroing ISIG on the tty IOCTL TCSETA command, but I'm not hopefull. 6) This little man showed up at work and told me that we don't like Apollo's Token ring anymore and that ethernet is gobs better. He had such a pleasant smile but gosh I just don't know. Does anybody out there have a probelm with this ? 7) All that time I spent wearing down my management to get me a DN10K and to tell it straight, I just don't want it anymore. The only power machine I want now is the one that comes with a future support upgrade/enhancement plan signed in blood by Mr. Packard. Throw in a money back gaurantee and I may be willing to forgo the driver's side airbag 8) Why does my head hurt so much when I look through the release notes. And where does it mention in the 10.3 notes anything about the new timed supplied to synchronize node clocks. 9) I know the IOCTL stuff will allow you to simulate input to a tty but is there any way to do the same thing to a gpr event wait ? A) Is there any way to change the text displayed in the window frame, once the window has been created ? B) How cum some people seem to know how to use unsupported and undocumented apollo commands ? Did they use to work for Apollo ? Do they reverse engineer the stuff or use the debugger ? Are they just good guessers ? Anybody care to share a method,list,or insight ? C) Ever notice how all the usefull facilities end up in /systest/ssr_util ? Whom do I have to kill to get the source code to those things ? D) Isn't the pad_$dm_cmd call a major security hole considering CRPs ? E) To any AEGIS die-hards. Just stop it. I know it's hard but think about your families. "AEGIS guru" just doesn't work on a Resume'. - awk grep yacc, sure but where's thhwwppsttt... P.S. Please respond here or to ruben@dsp35001.boeing.com . More interested in answers to the technical questions but feel free to let me know if I'm full of spit on the other points too. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: All of the above was written by my evil twin who is slightly deranged and should not be taken too seriously. No major Aerospace company beginning with a 'B' has anything to do with the opinions voiced herein.