Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!CSV.RPI.EDU!yerazuws From: yerazuws@CSV.RPI.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.ai Subject: Re: DEC AI Workstation Message-ID: <8702121349.AA14488@csv.rpi.edu> Date: Thu, 12-Feb-87 08:49:03 EST Article-I.D.: csv.8702121349.AA14488 Posted: Thu Feb 12 08:49:03 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Feb-87 22:46:51 EST References: <8702120856.AA22369@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 70 Approved: ailist@sri-stripe.arpa Summary: AI VAXstations Great Stuff (but I'm biased). In article <8702120856.AA22369@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, DON@atc.bendix.com writes: > .... Of particular interest to me are > remarks from people who have used the DEC workstation and one of the > standard Lisp workstations (XEROX, Symbolics, LMI, TI, Sun, Apollo). > First the disclaimer - I've worked for DEC over two summers now, and am hoping to work there permanently. However, the opinions below are (I believe) not significantly influenced by that- and I'm also a stockholder in Symbolics, so *there* :-) I've worked with 3600's, SUNs and AI VAXstations. The Symbolics used to be unquestionably superior- now I'm not so sure. Release 7 of Symbolics not only has proprietary code (and new microcode _again_), but now there are two different LISPS (Zeta and Common) and you have to be careful which LISP window you're typing at. The Symbolics also carry hefty price tags. The color display is a separate monitor- which takes up a good chunk of space. The tools are great, however. Window Debugger (c-m-W) is still unmatched elsewhere. I wouldn't bother with the SUN, especially in a diskless configuration. I wasted (yes, wasted) nine months trying to develop an architecture simulator on Sun 2's. Little things like a server being slow can completely hang your LISP and your editor - so you sit. And sit. And forget what you were doing... The problem is that when you page on a diskless SUN, you generate I/O requests at a HUGE rate compared to normal file I/O. Hence, a server which is only mildly busy as seen by fileio users is essentially locked up as far as the LISP user is concerned. I don't know if adding huge amounts of memory would help the SUN or not... but see the comments under "memory" below. Just so you understand HOW bad diskless SUN's are- We switched from the SUN workstations to a heavily loaded 4.2 BSD /780 and found that we were getting about ten times as much work done- even though we were sharing the machine with twenty other people. Now, the AI VAXstation. I like it a lot. I've got the simulator running (in LISP), the compiler for it (a LISP compiler, in LISP, with chunks migrating into OPS5), and most of my thesis written (in TeX). I've got C when I want to do C-like things, and FORTRAN when that's appropriate. I only have the black and white scope- but the color scope is usable without needing a b/w scope also. The LISP on VAXstations can do graphics, too. Very cleanly. I don't bother with the LISP Language Sensitive Editor, having been addicted to EMACS for so long. Sorry, can't help you there. Suggestion- if you buy the VAXstation, get lots of memory. Five megs is not enough if you have a LISP, three EMACSes and a DCL and are using them all- the LISP will thrash when you gc. Get nine megs (the one meg that comes on the CPU card, plus an eight-meg card) and you'll GC in about six seconds- which is much better than the Symbolics' time of ONE HOUR or more. I don't know if going to 16 megs (max addressable in a MicroVAX II) would improve anything- my system rarely pages at all in the above LISP/EMACS/DCL load configuration. I had Ultrix and Xwindows up for a while instead of DCL; I liked UIS better than X, so I accepted the DCL as part of the package. Besides there's a shell around somewhere.... Disclaimer repeated: I have been and hope again to be an employee of DEC. I am a stockholder of record in Symbolics, Inc. My best drinkin' buddy works for SUN Microsystems. -Bill Yerazunis