Help us defend against VMS! (AND ULTRIX CLUSTERS and more)

[Steve DeJarnett]

In article <295 at dcc1.UUCP> douglas at dcc1.UUCP (Douglas B. Jones) writes:
>Greetings:
>
>In article <1636 at tulum.UUCP> hirai at swatsun.uucp (Eiji "A.G." Hirai) writes:
>" While many observers have been expecting version 5.0 and the new VAX to be
>released at the same time, there is a hint that Digital may release the new
>machine under Ultrix, its Unix operating system, before the new VMS is ready,
>which will probably be in June, according to one well-informed Digital
>customer.
>  Sources say Digital sales representatives are being briefed not to be
>surprised if, in the future, new systems are released first under Ultrix
>and later under VMS."

	DEC was on campus here a few weeks ago trying to get us to buy
VAXStations as opposed to Sun-3's.  We weren't terribly interested, but we 
figured it was a good idea to hear them out, just in case they wanted to make
us a beta-test site for something (no luck).  

	The sales rep did say, however, that DEC is devoting more resources to
Ultrix now than they ever did to VMS in the past (more engineers working on it
at this time, more money spent on new development, and a greater commitment to
Unix-in-general (tm?) in the future.  Their hardware is still slow, but maybe
they're coming around (slowly).

	For my $0.02 worth, go with Unix.  I've used VMS, and it is relatively
user-proof.  However, if you are going to be doing ANY type of Software 
Development (besides 100-level Pascal programming, which I don't consider to 
be 'Software Development'), go with Unix.  Whenever I try to program under VMS,
I always say to myself: 'Gee, wouldn't it be great if I just had awk, or grep,
or RCS, or make, or.....'.  Now, granted, some of this stuff is available (some
even for free), but you still can only go so far in making VMS a decent 
programming environment (resetting the prompt to '% ' and aliasing everything
in sight to Unix-equivalent commands only fools your mind for so long).

	As far as real facts go, we too are locked in a battle with our 
Computer Center, trying to get them to support Unix for the campus so we can
stop doing it (really embarrasing when the Computer Science Department has 
10 unix machines capable of ~20 MIPS, and the Computer Center has about the
equivalent horsepower in all of their Primes and (cringe) IBM's).  Comp. Sci.
here at Cal Poly is supporting the entire campus's Unix needs.  Right now, I'd
be happy to see our Center get a big VAX running VMS, just so we could pawn off
the E-mail support to that (oh well, maybe some day).

	Doubt this helps much, but maybe you can glean something useful from it.
Good luck.


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| Steve DeJarnett		|    ...!ihnp4!csun!polyslo!steve	      |
| Computer Systems Lab		|    ...!{csustan,csun,sdsu}!polyslo!steve    |
| Cal Poly State Univ.		|    ...!ucbvax!voder!polyslo!steve	      |
| San Luis Obispo, CA  93407	|    					      |
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