Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!beartrk!clp
From: clp@beartrk.beartrack.com (Charlie Pilzer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: IBM screws RT owners?
Summary: I do have one
Message-ID: <396@beartrk.beartrack.com>
Date: 17 Feb 90 06:01:02 GMT
References: <1133@gort.cs.utexas.edu> <1134@gort.cs.utexas.edu>
Organization: Bear Track Computer Co., Takoma Park, MD.
Lines: 41

> In article <1133@gort.cs.utexas.edu> jason@cs.utexas.edu (Jason Martin Levitt) writes:
>
>  I'd like to talk to the brain-dead IBM marketeer that thought
> up this insult. Those customers who supported IBM RTs during the
> 1985-1988 years are shut-out completely.

I currently have a model 25 and just recently bought a used 115.
I use the machine as a single user software development platform
and on the whole pleased with it.  It took me a while to get use
to AIX differences and I have to be careful in my development to
keep things portable.

I went to the rollout yesterday and was impressed with what I saw.
I would like to have RS/6000 but I can't afford one unless
a client buys one for me.  At this point, I have too much invested
in the RT.  I guess that I'll be able to get spare parts by buying
used gear and parting it out (like the 115).  While it would be
nice to see AIX 3 (and followons) ported to the RT, I should be able
to survive even if I'm rev locked at 2.2.1.  My hope would be that
either AIX 3 will be available or that some other version of U*IX
will be available for the RT.  One possibility will be for the
GNU software, another path might use some version of AOS/AICS
(BSD 4.3 for the RT).  If and when OSF releases OSF/1, it might
see a port to the RT.  The RT that I have, and the ones that
my clients installed have performed well.  I can't complain too
badly over what IBM sold us.

I will admit that my development is in the commercial field,
end user applications, and that I don't run computationally
intensive programs.  My clients use the RT as a small
multiuser machine.  I guess I could go to using a PS/2 model
80 instead.  IBM is pushing the RS/6000 as a workstation,
a different market than the one in which I participate.

Just because IBM has hyped RS/6000, it doesn't mean that the
existing base of RTs will be abandoned.  I have not heard
from IBM about the status of AIX 3 for the RT and I'll be
content to wait for a while.

Charlie Pilzer
clp@beartrk.beartrack.com