Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!gargoyle!congdon
From: congdon@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU (Richard Congdon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: hp9000 ser. 500 hpux
Message-ID: <969@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 16 Mar 88 23:36:10 GMT
References: <987@maccs.UUCP> <4760006@hpfcls.HP.COM> <672@kuling.UUCP>
Reply-To: congdon@gargoyle.uchicago.edu.UUCP (Richard Congdon)
Organization: U of Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 42


Before my comments, let me say that we have a 540 and an 825S, and that
I have found a world of difference...

>...  The finstrate cards are really something to
>impress hardware people with ...  Not only do they look nice but they run 
>and run.  In fact, in all these years we haven't had any hardware problems
>whatsoever with our 540.  And the multi-CPU configuration turned it into a real
>workhorse being able to support a large number of users (typically 10-15)
>simultaneously without any noticable degradation in turn-around.

Yes the cards look nice; especially the old 256K cards. I also have had no
hardware problems, or a single crash!

>What's annoying about the 500 series is that the software is not being kept
>up-to-date, no TCP/IP, no X Windows, no troff (!!), no (supported) tplot, 
>plot, graph etc, and the hardware (CPU, RAM, interfaces) is VERY expensive
>-- somehow we have a feeling prices have gone up rather than down...

In the past, HP has been rather bad about making their machines work with
other vendors hardware/software. (This seems to be changing, though.) Most
of the software you mentioned is available in various ways (not X Windows).
I have never understood the lack of troff. I think that the hardware costs
reflect their high quality, and no, they don't come down unless they are 
selling it. Also, once they come out with something better, any hope of
price reductions is lost.

>... We don't even think an 800
>series can compete with a 500 with 2 or 3 computers in terms of multi-user
>capablility.

On this point, I will have to strongly disagree. I have found our 825S to
be a much faster machine than the 540. On non-IO intensive things, it is
about 9-10 times faster than the 540; IO-intensive is about 3 times faster.
It is much, much better on handling 10-15 users (our peak crowd). Your
experience may be different, but I found that the 540 really bogged down with
over 10 users (unless they were all using vi).
-- 
			Richard Congdon
			Dept. of Education, Univ. of Chicago
			...ihnp4!gargoyle!paideia!{richard,root}
			(312) 702-9453