micro-code upgrade (and VMS vs. Unix stats)

[Rick Ace]

In article <3729 at phri.UUCP>, roy at phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
> 	Some number of years ago, when our 750 was fairly new, DEC came out
> with a "rev 7" upgrade, which was some minor change in the memory controller
> having to do with catching cache parity errors, or something like that (I
> don't remember exactly, but the details are not that important).  DEC
> insisted on installing it on our 750 and I foolishly let them.
> 
> 	The result was weeks (or was it months?) of agony.  It never worked
> right and DEC insisted on putting the blame on the fact that we were running
> Unix.  Eventually, after GOK how many board swaps, they got us a board that
> worked, claiming that they were special-testing boards to find ones that ran
> under Unix.  When I say I "foolishly" let them install it, what I mean is
> that until they did the upgrade, we didn't have any problems; we never had
> the symptoms that the upgrade was supposed to cure and after the upgrade we
> had *lots* of problems.
> 
> 	My advice is to ask DEC just *why* they want to install the new
> microcode, and don't let them unless they have a damn good reason.  If your
> machine works as it is, what do you have to gain by changing something?

I suspect DEC will answer like this:  "Because Field Service will
soon refuse to support Vax-11/750 systems that are not up to Rev 7."
This is true of hardware and software alike.  It makes no
economic sense for a vendor to support previous versions of
products when the current versions are supersets of their
predecessors.  Now in Roy's case, the Rev 7 upgrade did
not deliver a superset of what it replaced.  However, it's
probably true that DEC had no idea that things were going to
get worse when they did the upgrade.  (As an example, Field
Service upgraded two 750s at NYIT to Rev 7 a few years ago,
and outside of my having to figure out how to make 4.2bsd
load the microcode, both upgrades went smoothly.)

Roy, the best thing you could have done was to demand that
DEC commit to a date (as early as you bargain for) by which
they will either make Rev 7 work or return you to your
previous revision level.  If the local F-S manager won't
buy into that, talk to his/her superior(s) until you get
satisfaction.


Rick Ace
Pixar
3240 Kerner Blvd, San Rafael CA 94901
...!{sun,ucbvax}!pixar!rta