Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!polaris!herbie From: herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: FYI: VM systems on the net Message-ID: <653@polaris.UUCP> Date: Sat, 19-Jul-86 14:22:04 EDT Article-I.D.: polaris.653 Posted: Sat Jul 19 14:22:04 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jul-86 20:34:37 EDT References: <6340MW9@PS> <607@bcsaic.UUCP> Reply-To: herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) Distribution: na Organization: IBM TJ Watson RC Lines: 58 In article <607@bcsaic.UUCP> ted@bcsaic.UUCP (ted jardine) writes: >It would be preferable that the gentleman (and I use the term advisedly) >making the rude comments consider that he is in facting riding upon a >dinosaur while criticizing the modern world. With considerable experience >using MVS, TSO, VM, and CMS as well as various Univac, DEC, and other >operating systems I can say that Unix may have some shortcomings for some >applications, but it's a long way in front of whatever is in second place!! first, i agree that the person from PSUVM needs a little more tact but i think you should consult your history books a little to straighten out the facts. 1) OS/360 was designed in the early 60's, around and about 1964 2) VM/370 was designed in and around 1967 3) Unix was first called unix around 1970 if OS/360 is a dinosaur based purely on age then unix isn't far behind. unix is not a state of the art operating system. it may have been about 10 years ago but anything that has been around long enough to be a "commercial success" and has an ANSI standard pending is by definition ancient. i also note that you give no criteria for why unix is better. it is, i agree, a very good programming environment and testbed for OS ideas and stuff like that. VM/370 and it's descendants are much better for designing and building OS's that will run on bare iron because it simulates a complete hardware architecture. OS, in it's latest incarnation MVS, provides a very good system to build LARGE applications for transaction processing. if i had a 2K ROM monitor to manage a small display if LEDs, i'm not going to chose any of the above. what a system is intended to do determine what criteria are relevant. if you believed the marketing hypes in all the trade rags, you would think that merely the mention of unix would mean instant customer satisfaction. suppose i wanted to have an office automation environment that supported 15,000 simultaneously users. can you think of an existing unix system that could handle that? i can think of one that might. the VM/PROFS system (running on a dyadic processor) down the road has been at the 15,000 user point for nearly a year. suppose i wanted to do new compiler development? off the shelf lex and yacc are second to none of all OS's that i am aware of. this does not mean the tools are not available on other systems. unix may be great for the things that YOU want to do but to others, what unix isn't good at is what matters. Herb Chong, IBM Research... I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH UUCP: {allegra|cbosgd|cmcl2|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!philabs!polaris!herbie CSNET: herbie%ibm.com@csnet-relay ARPA: herbie@ibm.com, herbie%yktvmh.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu ======================================================================== DISCLAIMER: what you just read was produced by pouring lukewarm tea for 42 seconds onto 9 people chained to 6 Ouiji boards.