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From: srt@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (Scott Turner)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo vs. Sun:  A short comparison
Message-ID: <503008196-2742-srt@ZEUS.LOCUS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 15:29:56 EST
Article-I.D.: ZEUS.503008196-2742-srt
Posted: Mon Dec  9 15:29:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 20:01:23 EST
References: <8512071818.AA18181@mouton.ARPA>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (Scott Turner)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 38
Keywords: Apollo comments
Approved: apollo@yale-comix.arpa


  Peterson@Utah has answered most of the major points mike%bambi raised about
the Apollos, but I'd like to throw in my two cents worth.

  At UCLA we are running a network of 25 Apollos of various flavors, most
of which are used in the Artificial Intelligence Lab.  There are also other
sizable Apollo communities out there, particularly at Utah and Yale.

  One major plus Apollo has going for it is the service.  We've had nothing
but excellent, prompt and exemplary service from Apollo.  We seem to suffer
hardware problems in waves (fortunately of diminishing frequence and
severity) and when one occurs the Apollo service people work unstintingly
to correct matters.

  At the software level, I was once confused by a fairly obscure graphics
call.  I rang up Apollo in Mass and asked for a graphics expert.  He called
me back in about 10 minutes.  I outlined my problem, he got off the phone,
WROTE TEST CODE RIGHT THEN and called me back shortly with a solution.  I
couldn't have asked for more, and this seems to be the attitude throughout
the company, and to me and anyone else who's tried to do real work on a net
of 25 workstations, that's worth a lot.

  I've also become very enamored of the Apollo's user interface.  I've
recently had a chance to interact with a MacIntosh, Xerox Dandetiger and
a Symbolics LM-2.  There seems to be a prevalent attitude that ``Menus are
Good''.  Not so for the experienced user.  Nothing is more annoying than
to have to constantly leave the keyboard to perform editing functions.  The
Apollo interface is designed with this in mind.  The interface is a set of
Display Manager commands that can be bound in any way (including sequences)
to any key (including the six mouse keys).  And while the DM commands aren't
as versatile and complete as Emac's Mocklisp, they do provide a very
powerful interface.  (There is not, however, any way to define new functions
except as sequences of old functions.)

 So while the Apollos do have problems (the second citizen status of Unix
being the most annoying) I find them very usable.

                                        -- Scott Turner