Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!amdahl!pyramid!csg From: csg@pyramid.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: Benchmarking the 532, 68030, MIPS, 386...at a Usenix! Message-ID: <2433@pyramid.UUCP> Date: Thu, 21-May-87 15:06:43 EDT Article-I.D.: pyramid.2433 Posted: Thu May 21 15:06:43 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 01:38:15 EDT References: <324@dumbo.UUCP> <809@killer.UUCP> <2417@homxa.UUCP> Reply-To: csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA Lines: 30 Xref: utgpu comp.arch:1259 comp.org.usenix:177 I've always used a vendor's willingness to let me hack on their trade-show machines as an indicator of how solid that machine was. Some vendors (notably Symmetric, and recently DEC) actually grab people off the floor and encourage them to come play with their machine. I also recall bringing up Interleaf on an Apollo DOMAIN/IX node at a show, and subsquently found myself demoing the product since I knew more about Interleaf than the sales critters did.... (Of course, I explained to the observers that Interleaf was also available on Sun and MicroVAX workstations.... :-)) I also know of at least one person who checks out all the machines and tries to break security -- an impromptu version of Gould's Secure UNIX challange. The variations from vendor to vendor on the show floor are astonishing. >If I can crash a system in five minutes doing things that are normal, legal, >and *NECESSARY* for everyday function, then I know it can't possibly be >reliable. At the above Apollo demo, I innocently managed to crash the node. That did not lower my opinion of the system, though; I would rather they encouraged me to hack on a system that they openly admitted was a pre-release product, instead of hiding behind a cloak of secrecy and insisting they had a finished product. (And the bugs I found were fixed before FCS.) >I am reminded of the account in Richard Feynman's biography of his exploits >as an amateur safecracker.... This is not at all different from trade-show booths that "blackball" certain people, knowing they are competitors or crackers. Yes, they really do this.