Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site polaris.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!polaris!charliep From: charliep@polaris.UUCP (Charlie Perkins) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.works Subject: Re: Problems with Masscomp Message-ID: <174@polaris.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 01:21:15 EDT Article-I.D.: polaris.174 Posted: Wed Sep 11 01:21:15 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 21:48:27 EDT References: <233@geowhiz.UUCP> Reply-To: charliep@polaris.UUCP (Charlie Perkins) Organization: IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Lines: 92 Xref: linus net.unix-wizards:11941 net.works:874 I read with great interest Bruce Karsh's complaint regarding Masscomp's Unix systems. I have a great deal of experience in dealing with Masscomp, so I thought I would add a few words to this discussion. Under no imaginable circumstance should my statements be regarded as related in any way to IBM policies, strategies, plans, or anything official at all! (there, is THAT strong enough??). First of all, I was surprised to read that there had been trouble getting phone calls returned from Masscomp sales people. For me, it has been exactly the opposite. Masscomp sales has been unfailingly considerate and diligent. I have even found that the sales people know something about the technical details of their computers, although not enough. I keep getting the impression that they want to sell me more computers and that if they return calls and describe upcoming products they will have a better chance of doing so. We have had many, many problems with our equipment here. The most prominent problem (and it has been a super headache) has been the Ethernet card used by Masscomp, made by Excelan. This card (in my opinion a poor choice since, using it, Masscomp cannot be a network gateway) has recently been found by Excelan to have (other) design problems. I am told that when the redesign is finished, we will be getting more reliable cards as needed. And, it is about time. I have noticed the other problems that Bruce mentions, but only rarely. Ethernet data is never lost going into a file, only when it is to be displayed by the window manager. Other problems have included power supplies, flaky graphics cards, and interrupt problems resulting from not following certain guidelines which were never documented. They are all fixed now. I really have to compliment Masscomp service. In our many dealings with the service organization, I have been usually satisfied with their response time and effectiveness, and have always been satisfied with their courtesy. My major complaint is the length of time it took to figure out the Ethernet problems. There have been a few other problems. For me it has been very frustrating not to have source, because our entire department relies heavily on the use of the network, and I just want to go fix things when they don't work. The service we have received for software problems has been much more uneven than for hardware, but still generally acceptable. I will not comment on the use of the Graphics libraries. I like the use of the window manager that comes with it, but there are some incredible bugs. Trying to suspend the C-shell you get with a new window will hang up the entire window manager (including mouse and keyboard!). As superuser you can send CONT signals to the affected processes but the window manager never completely recovers. I am hoping that the newer release of the graphics products will be much better (rumored for later this year). All in all the window manager is a nice feature to have, but implemented poorly. Masscomp provides an ambitious array of features. They do have bugs, but they are serious about getting them out, and things are getting better (around here, at least). They have good performance for floating point computations and good overall performance. I will be finding out lots more about the graphics side of things later this year... However, I think that they have little competition when it comes to gathering data onto disk in real time (at least, in the Unix marketplace). I would be interested in hearing about competitive products if there are any. In summary, I will say that our Masscomp systems have been an effective computing medium for our needs. There have been lots of technical problems, but not many people problems. I could go on with choice tidbits about specific bugs, but I am sure every computer manufacturer has these. Don't get me started about the Vaxes I used to work with! And, finally, in my opinion there are a lot of competent engineers working at Masscomp who intend to fix problems as they are found -- as well as continually upgrading and adding needed features. That has to count for a lot. Charlie Perkins, IBM T.J. Watson Research philabs!polaris!charliep, perk%YKTVMX.BITNET@berkeley, perk.yktvmx.ibm@csnet-relay PS. Masscomp, are you listening?? When are you going to implement bug submission via electronic mail??? How about tomorrow? -- Charlie Perkins, IBM T.J. Watson Research philabs!polaris!charliep, perk%YKTVMX.BITNET@berkeley, perk.yktvmx.ibm@csnet-relay