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From: achille@cernvax.UUCP (achille)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: SR10 doesn't have /lib/gmrlib ... ???
Message-ID: <882@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: 18 Nov 88 13:11:20 GMT
References: <8811110007.AA07839@richter.mit.edu> <3fb4f835.7c9c@apollo.COM>
Reply-To: achille@cernvax.UUCP ()
Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 72

In article <3fb4f835.7c9c@apollo.COM> burati@apollo.COM (Mike Burati) writes:
> > Well, I don't know where to start ... we can't run the
> > diagnostics anymore -- we have to wait for the repairman
> > to come down here and run them and *then* figure out
> > that he doesn't have the correct board; many of the more
>
>Not necessarily.  There is now a password on DEX, that part is true.
>The license to use DEX is your customer service contract.  I believe that

I think this is really a bad idea if it is like that:
I buy a machine, I don't get a service contract and Apollo does not allow me
to run diagnostics ? Why ? Is it my machine or not ? May I know what is
going wrong on MY (not Apollo's) CPU ???

> >I just got my SR10 distribution, but haven't bothered to unpack it yet
> >as I am not up to dealing with a whole new set of bugs ... and now
> >you tell me that I can't run (much less develop) my GMR based software
> >on SR10 unless I go out and buy a GMR license?
>
>This is not true.  The GMR2D license is included, but not the actual software
	... (lines deleted) ...
>According to the price list the license is bundled with each system
>and you pay for the media and documentation ($100).  I believe the
>other media types are even less. (see explanation below)

And you mean that for 100$ Apollo is giving all this shit to customers ?
This is even more ridicolous than having to pay 1000$ for GMR2D.
Just the paper work for a similar order could cost to our organization
around 100$ !!!

So I can get GMR2D without paying 1000$, what about
	1) delivery time (in Europe),
	2) software maintenance prices for GMR2D, I think this was
	included in the OS maintenance before, and with DomainOS ?
	How much I have to pay ?

>  > inability to use object oriented file system info
>  > without making system-dependent OS calls.
>
>Maybe I don't understand the question, and if so feel free to tell (not flame) me.
>It looks like you're asking for system indepent (ie: standard UNIX) OS calls to get
>non-standard (ie: info not available in UNIX) information from the file system.

May be this means that Apollo had to expand Unix toward Aegis (i.e. distributed
environment) rather than downgrade Aegis toward Unix, Sun apparently has been quite
successfull to expand Unix whether Apollo is quite unsuccessfull in downgrading
Aegis.

Mike, I would like to see more of this kind of info on the net, but I'm pessimistic
as it took a long series of flames going around before somebody decided that
was time to answer.

A few general remarks about Apollo and its customers:
1) looks like a lot of people are missing this kind of info,
2) Apollo has to think more carefully about its strategy WELL in advance.
	it is real difficult to decide which package to use for a long lasting
	project if Apollo keeps changing direction every now and then.
Here are two examples:
	I was told two (2) years ago by various people in Apollo that GPR was
dead (planned obsolescence and degrading performance), GSR was the way
to go at the low level, GMR[23]D were the high level packages to use
and eventually migrate to Phigs.
Now you tell me that GPR is going to stay around forever and that 
special action is required to get any of the other graphics packages,
how this fits with 1987 strategy ?
	I was being told 2 years ago that RFS was the way Apollo was going
for hetereogenous networking. Today the only product I know of is NFS.

This was not intended to be a flame, if you think it is, I apologize.

Achille Petrilli
Cray and Personal Workstation Operations