1 INFO-VAX	Fri, 22 Sep 2000	Volume 2000 : Issue 530       Contents:3 Re: Advertising for OpenVMS from Executive Software  AlphaPC164 & decwindows ' Re: Alternative to REPLY/ENABLE=TAPES ? + Re: Backup /ignor=interlock  = not ignoring  Re: Basic freeware CD problems" Changing Alpha 2100 SCSI backplane& Re: Changing Alpha 2100 SCSI backplane Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo Re: Compaq VMS promo  Re: Compaq VMS promo (education), Re: Deleting 250,000+ files from a directory Re: Duplex Printing / Re: FILESERV@WKU: Updated VNCviewer for OpenVMS * Re: Fixed length 17 byte record data & RMS2 Re: FW: Oracle Pricing ( was RE: Compaq VMS promo)# Re: Help with Alpha Server 3000/800  Re: Home Built Machine Re: Home Built Machine Re: MULTIA + OpenVMS Re: MULTIA + OpenVMS Re: MULTIA + OpenVMS Re: MULTIA + OpenVMS% Re: No more SYSDUMP.DMP? No more NTP?  Re: NTP with UCX 4.2! Re: OpenVMS Prior Version Support  Re: OpenVMS(tm) RENNAISSANCE. Re: Oracle Pricing ( was RE: Compaq VMS promo)# Re: OT:  More MSFT on US Navy ships  OT:  More MSFT on US Navy ships " Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships" Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships" Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships/ Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - update / Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - update / Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - update 0 Replacing system disk, will licenses still work?- Re: RSH Problem - Can someone try this for me ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist ! Re: Sun Hardware problems persist  Re: VMS Memory Tuning A War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now) E Re: War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now) E Re: War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now) # Re: what path does clustering use?? # Re: what path does clustering use??   F ----------------------------------------------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 22:26:33 -0500 7 From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys.nospam@earthlink.net> < Subject: Re: Advertising for OpenVMS from Executive Software- Message-ID: <39CAD169.F92D98F6@earthlink.net>   % Steve.Spires@yellowpages.co.uk wrote:  >  > cc:  > bcc:? > Contact:   Tel: 3063  -  VSSG, 1st Floor, Bridge Street Plaza  > 1 > Advertising for OpenVMS from Executive Software  > R > I know that there are many on this group who dislike Executive Software, but theQ > NEWSKEEPER newsletter from them (Volume 13 Issue 5) has on its front cover, the P > large title "AN OpenVMS RENAISSANCE" with a full page article whic is fullsomeR > in its praise for OpenVMS. Also inside another page article on the ORACLE/COMPAQ# > e-business Solutions for OpenVMS.  > F > If this goes out to any non-VMS users, then that's a good thing, no? > " > Pity Compaq can't do the same...  F Yes - it's a pity that when it finally appears, it comes from personae non gratae.    --   David J. Dachtera  dba DJE Systems  http://www.djesys.com/  : Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page and Message Board: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/   F This *IS* an OpenVMS-related newsgroup. So, a certain bias in postings is to be expected.  @ Feel free to exercise your rights of free speech and expression.  F However, attacks against individual posters, or groups of posters, are strongly discouraged.    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 23:03:47 -0400 ) From: yyyc186.illegaltospam_@flashcom.net   Subject: AlphaPC164 & decwindows9 Message-ID: <39caccd5$1$lllp186$mr2ice@news.flashcom.com>    All,  F My AlphaPC164 has a Diamond PCI based video adapter in it.  DecwindowsJ refuses to recognize it as a graphics adapter.  Since VMS cannot recognize= the console type of OPA0 editing in edt line mode is a bitch.   I What Graphics adapter do I need, or what sysman config do I need to enter D to get Decwindows running on this box?  There are settings in the GQH command file for an ATI Mach64.  I can pic one of these cards up if needI be.  I have older crummy Diamond video cards at home which are ISA bused.   ) Who has successfully gotten this to work?   4 Please feel free to private email me on this matter.   Roland   --  ; ----------------------------------------------------------- D yyyc186@flashcom.net              To Respond delete ".illegaltospam"6                             MR/2 Internet Cruiser 1.528                             For a Microsoft free univers; -----------------------------------------------------------    ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 23:34:58 GMT 2 From: Gib Copeland <copeland@jenni.path.uiowa.edu>0 Subject: Re: Alternative to REPLY/ENABLE=TAPES ?4 Message-ID: <39CA9BCA.5C41BD06@jenni.path.uiowa.edu>  ? You can use the program below to dump current OPCOM requests to ? SYS$OUTPUT.  Redirect to a file or pipe and search for whatever 
 you're after.    Gib    --   #include <descrip.h> #include <dvidef.h>  #include <iodef.h> #include <msgdef.h>  #include <opcdef.h>  #include <starlet.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h>  #include <stsdef.h>  #include <ttdef.h> #include <tt2def.h>    #define OPC_BUFSIZ 4096    main() {      char devnam_string[16]; E     $DESCRIPTOR (devnam, devnam_string); /* Pseudoterm device name */ ;     $DESCRIPTOR (mbxnam, "TMP_OPC_MBX"); /* Mailbox name */        /* OPCOM message buffer */     static struct {          char    type;          char    enable[3];         int     mask;          short   ounit;         char    nlen;          char    name[16]; 
     } msgbuf;        /* Descriptor for same */ #     struct dsc$descriptor_s opc_d = H         {sizeof(msgbuf), DSC$K_DTYPE_T, DSC$K_CLASS_S, (char *)&msgbuf};       /* Item list for GETDVI */     struct {
 	short		len1;  	short		item1; 	char		*buf_addr1; 	unsigned short *ret_len1;
 	short		len2;  	short		item2; 	char		*buf_addr2; 	int		*ret_len2;
 	int		end;4     } item_list = {devnam.dsc$w_length, DVI$_DEVNAM,0 		   devnam.dsc$a_pointer, &devnam.dsc$w_length,0 		   4, DVI$_UNIT, (char *)&msgbuf.ounit, 0, 0};  *     struct {				/* I/O buffer start/end */
 	char	*start;  	char	*end;      } ret_addr;   1     struct {				/* Structure for mailbox input */  	short	wrdbuf[11]; 	char	chrbuf[OPC_BUFSIZ];      } reply;           int status; ;     int chars[3] =			/* Desired terminal characteristics */ ' 			{0, TT$M_NOBRDCST, TT2$M_BRDCSTMBX}; -     short ft_chan;			/* Pseudoterm channel */ 0     short mbx_chan;			/* & associated mailbox */+     short iosb[4];			/* I/O status block */   3     /* Allocate I/O buffers for a pseudoterminal */ -     status = sys$expreg (6, &ret_addr, 0, 0); 6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;  !     /* Create a pseudoterminal */ B     status = ptd$create (&ft_chan, 0, &chars, sizeof(chars), 0, 0, 		0, &ret_addr);6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;  *     /* Get the pseudoterm's device name */E     status = sys$getdviw (0, ft_chan, 0, &item_list, &iosb, 0, 0, 0); 6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;  #     /* Create associated mailbox */ I     status = sys$crembx (0, &mbx_chan, OPC_BUFSIZ, OPC_BUFSIZ*2, 0x0ff00,  		0, &mbxnam);6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;  8     status = sys$assign (&devnam, &ft_chan, 0, &mbxnam);6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;    )     memcpy (&msgbuf, &0, sizeof(msgbuf));       msgbuf.type = OPC$_RQ_TERME;     msgbuf.enable[0] = 1;      msgbuf.mask = 0x1ff;&     msgbuf.nlen = devnam.dsc$w_length;;     strncpy( &msgbuf.name[0], devnam_string, msgbuf.nlen );   $     status = sys$sndopr (&opc_d, 0);6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;  !     msgbuf.type = OPC$_RQ_STATUS; $     status = sys$sndopr (&opc_d, 0);6     if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status;       for (;;) {D 	status = sys$qiow (0, mbx_chan, IO$_READVBLK|IO$M_NOW, &iosb, 0, 0,& 			   &reply, OPC_BUFSIZ, 0, 0, 0, 0); 	if (iosb[1] == 0) break; 3 	if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(status) ) return status; 4 	if ( !$VMS_STATUS_SUCCESS(iosb[0]) ) return status;  + 	if ( reply.wrdbuf[0] == MSG$_TRMBRDCST ) { ( 	    reply.chrbuf[reply.wrdbuf[10]] = 0;' 	    printf ("%s\n", &reply.chrbuf[0]);  	}     }  }    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:12:05 -0400 - From: JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@videotron.ca> 4 Subject: Re: Backup /ignor=interlock  = not ignoring, Message-ID: <39CA87AE.2A756013@videotron.ca>   Terry Marosites wrote: >  > Hello all,L > Doing a backup /ignor=interlock disk7:[dir2]x.x mydir:*.* my process hangs > looking at the log I seeK > %BACKUP-W-ACCONFLICT, DISK7:[dir2]x.x;1 is open for write by another user   M I am not sure about why/if your process hands. But the /ignore=interlock will K still issue the warning you quoted above during the backup but still backup 	 the file.   L If you use the backup command interactively, you can use <CTRL>-T during theH backup and it will tell you which file it is currently processing. It is' possible it is hanging on another file.   M It is also possible that your tape is deffective and the process hangs always  at the same place.   ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 18:18:42 GMT2 From: hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam (Hoff Hoffman)' Subject: Re: Basic freeware CD problems 6 Message-ID: <8qdje2$lgm$1@mailint03.im.hou.compaq.com>  J In article <8qddgd$qe7$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "laurie" <abd@bdc.com> writes:7 :I'm trying to install software off the freewarev30 CD    I   Way old Freeware.  You can order the V4.0 CD-ROM (QA-6KZAA-H8), or you  !   can download kits from the URL:   +     http://www.openvms.compaq.com/freeware/   A   The main Freeware website has information on updates and known     problems:   A     http://www.openvms.digital.com/openvms/freeware/cd_guide.html   L :Since most of the software has no real instructions on how to install it, IK :assume that the images are directly executable. However, when I try to run H :unzip or gzip, they run, but won't accept any arguments (with quotes as% :suggested by the unzip help screen).  :What am I doing wrong?   G   You will probably want to look up the details on setting up and using G   foreign commands in the FAQ -- most of the freeware tools do not have F   DCL verbs associated with them, prefering to use the foreign command5   or automatic foreign command (DCL$PATH) mechanisms.   J :I had a look at the help for the install command, but that didn't suggest# :that it would do anything to help.   6   The OpenVMS INSTALL utility is probably not related.  G   BTW: there are some known bugs with some of the pre-built versions of H   ZIP on the Freeware.  They're old and don't work correctly on the mostI   recent OpenVMS releases, unfortunately.   The FAQ has pointers to newer J   versions, and (hopefully) the older versions will be replaced with newer,   ones when the next Freeware kits ship out.     --  H   Freeware submissions for the next CD-ROM set are welcome.  Please see:   A     http://www.openvms.digital.com/openvms/freeware/cd_guide.html     N  --------------------------- pure personal opinion ---------------------------L    Hoff (Stephen) Hoffman   OpenVMS Engineering   hoffman#xdelta.zko.dec.com   ------------------------------  # Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 00:52:26 GMT * From: "Jack Peacock" <peacock@simconv.com>+ Subject: Changing Alpha 2100 SCSI backplane F Message-ID: <e3yy5.12262$nk3.579113@newsread03.prod.itd.earthlink.net>  F I have an early Alpha 2100 with one internal storage shelf.  CurrentlyG the shelf is wired to the motherboard SCSI controller as one backplane, E set up for 5.25" drive spacing (as originally shipped with RZ74s from E factory).  I know it is possible to reconfigure the SCSI backplane to F operate as two separate 4-drive backplanes.  I would like to change itG to this configuration and switch over to the Mylex RAID controller, one B channel to each of the 4-unit sections, and the third RAID channelH external, as it is now.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to obtain theD documents for this machine yet from the original customer.  Is thereH some information on how to do this anywhere on a website.  Basically allG I need are the changes to the SCSI backplane to operate as two separate H backplanes, and which 50-pin connectors correspond to each section.  TheH two currently unused Mylex channels end in 50 pin cables just behind the& shelf, but I don't know where they go.  G An old machine but well built and it's all mine now.   I'd like to take E advantage of more of the internal hardware, especially the Mylex RAID G controller.  It's slow by modern standards but it's fast enough for me, F and I'd take it over a Multia any day.  I hope to preserve it for many more years.   % Any help or pointers are appreciated.     Jack Peacock    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 20:50:46 -0500 ) From: "John E. Malmberg" <wb8tyw@qsl.net> / Subject: Re: Changing Alpha 2100 SCSI backplane / Message-ID: <ssleknksts5db2@corp.supernews.com>   5 "Jack Peacock" <peacock@simconv.com> wrote in message @ news:e3yy5.12262$nk3.579113@newsread03.prod.itd.earthlink.net...H > I have an early Alpha 2100 with one internal storage shelf.  CurrentlyI > the shelf is wired to the motherboard SCSI controller as one backplane, G > set up for 5.25" drive spacing (as originally shipped with RZ74s from  > factory).   L There is no setup to use 5.25 drive spacing.  There is a default address for8 each slot that can be overridden by the drive cartridge.  C Spliting the backplain should be easy.  I do not remember the exact @ procedure as all of my 2100s of that type left a few months ago.  K If you remove the shelf and look at the back, you should see a jumper and a A terminator.  I think if you remove the jumper and attach a second 0 terminator, you should be able to connect it up.  + The shelfs alternate between the two buses.   K As I recall it appeared pretty obvious at the time from looking at the back 
 of the shelf.   J I also converted a few of the machines to use the fast-wide shelves.  WithG the internal SCSI, plus three channels on the remaining three sections.   I > An old machine but well built and it's all mine now.   I'd like to take G > advantage of more of the internal hardware, especially the Mylex RAID I > controller.  It's slow by modern standards but it's fast enough for me, H > and I'd take it over a Multia any day.  I hope to preserve it for many
 > more years.   I If you are running hobby OpenVMS on it, you only get one processor.  Good  luck.   J Make it a point to remove the right side panel on at least an annual basis< to remove any dust that accumulates in the power supply fan.  I Watch for compatable memory boards to start showing up on the used market  :-)    -John  wb8tyw@qsl.network   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:27:09 GMT = From: system@SendSpamHere.ORG (Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman-)  Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo 0 Message-ID: <009F0760.7CF9B71E@SendSpamHere.ORG>  v In article <000921183315.3972@nplvms.physics.ox.ac.uk>, John Macallister <j.macallister1@physics.oxford.ac.uk> writes:D >At one time it was necessary to learn a programming language to getF > anything out of a computer. Nowadays most people, including schools,E > can concentrate on their applications without the need to learn any  > programming language.  > D >If your career involves writing applications for computers you willH > need programming languages but most people can be experts in their ownA > fields now without any significant programming language skills.   H That's so true.  Look at the successful nature of M$ and there is great G doubt that there are any significant programming language skills there.    --O VAXman- OpenVMS APE certification number: AAA-0001     VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM              O city, n., 1. a place where trees are cut down and streets are named after them.    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:03:48 -0600 - From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>3 Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promos; Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768167@DENXCH>d  J This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand< this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C023F6.4A69A19C0 Content-Type: text/plain;q 	charset="iso-8859-1"V   Bill Gunshannon wrote:  - > |> Don't schools teach programming anymore?   E > I don't see what that has to do with the question at hand, but justpD > to answer your question, no, not particualrly. Trade schools teach9 > programming.  We teach Computer Science, which containstA > programming in many of it's courses, but programming is not thet$ > desired end result of the courses.  E Boy, how the definition of CS has changed since "my days" in college!cL Programming as a "trade school" course?!!  How in the world did the conceptsI of "design" vs. "utterance" get separated into mutually exclusive topics?UL In my experience, in no other endeavor is it more true that "the language weC speak influences the thoughts we think" than in software design and  implementation.n  L With all respect, Bill, I've read and re-read your post, and agree with muchL of it... we're mostly "on the same side" re: getting VMS back into academia.J This is a complicated issue, and our viewpoints are obviously polar, yoursK from inside, and mine from outside the university environment.  Please readhJ my following remarks as "discussion", not "attack", and with apologies for6 focusing on a few things out of your original context.  D > Haven't you been listening??  The fact that VMS can reliably run a= > huge Oracle database carries no weight in this environment.a? > If VMS is to find it's way back into the academic mainstream, F > it must have all the same tools available that the other OSes offer.  C Well, I'd give a month's pay just to be able to find a college-gradlE candidate who had a clue about:  a) database normalization (clearly alH "concept") *and* the ability to write code which effectively uses such aL database;  or b) issues of large-database management, tuning and performanceK (largely "tool-based" topics, but again, heavily influenced/supplemented by-K "programming" skills);  or c) practical experience to implementing softwared9 in a multi-lingual environment (for example, a successfulOK employee/contributor to our product would use DEC Pascal, C, DCL, TPU, SQL, E CLI, HTML, plus several home-brew tools, all in the course of routinecK development and maintenance);  or d) practical knowledge of when and how tooL use the VMS Debugger;  or e) using sanity and wisdom, rather than flights ofL fancy, in interpreting and correcting an error message (*any* error message, regardless of OS/platform).i  G In *my* world, data (as embodied in large, multi-user, high-performancegB databases) is the "valuable commodity", but programming skills areD absolutely necessary to manage, preserve and utilize these resource.  A > As for teaching students to write new applications, that's whataA > trade schools do.  English class doesn't teach (explicitly) howt0 > to write a dramatic short story or a SF novel.  K Respectfully:  Huh?!!!  Last time I looked, an English class taught writing/J by *doing it*, i.e., by writing stories (if not full-blown novels).  IICR,D the "prerequisite tool set" for writing was, and still is, paper andI pencil... yes, a word processor is a very effective tool for writing, butoL it's not a requirement!  That's an argument for productivity and throughput,E even form over content, but not for basic writing concepts or skills.   F > What it teaches are the tools necessary to accomplish these and manyE > other tasks.  CS is exactly the same.  We teach tools, concepts ande methods.H > Programming for programmings sake is what they teach in trade schools.  K This is the third time you've made this point about "trade schools"... do Ir8 detect a "look-down-your-nose" tone for this topic?  ;-)  J In my college days, teaching and learning "how to program" (be it FORTRAN,L Algol, Pascal, Lisp, SNOBOL, whatever) was a respectable academic topic, and> was seen as inseparable from basic concepts of algorithmic and> data-structure design, code optimization, study of algorithmicJ characteristics (P- vs. NP-incompleteness, efficiency, etc.), all groundedF on the foundation textbooks of Knuth, Wirth, Dijkstra and many others.  H Has all of this been somehow lost, forgotten or intentionally dropped inH current CS curricula?  Or has it, as previously noted, just been renamedL "computer engineering", and my concerns are groundless?  But telling me thatJ "programming" is a trade-school, separable, topic from these computational  foundations concerns me greatly!  L "Programming for programming's sake"?  IMHO, there's no such thing... Skill,H mastery and expertise with programming languages (plural!) is *the* mostJ fundamental and useful *tool* there is!  If "tools-oriented" curricula hasF any validity at all, then relegating "programming" to trade-schools is1 really throwing the baby out with the bath-water!l  F > Where are the tools to do this with VMS??  See the point? It doesn'tF > matter how superior VMS is.  If I have a handful of screws, a hammerL > is not the right tool for the job.  Without the tools, the machine is just a doorstop.   B Well, yes, I do see your point.  But you may be missing the other,I overarching point, namely, the apparent shift in emphasis in CS curriculaSJ from solid software development (e.g., "programming") concepts towards theI perception that what's important is to "teach the use of tools."  I agreefE that if tool-use is "the mission" for CS departments today, then yes,nK determine "the tool-set" which is likely to get the greatest number of jobsn5 for the greatest number of graduates, and teach that.*  I Besides, last time I looked, things like compilers, command-interpreters,oI linkers, text editors, and debuggers were, and are, fundamental tools foriI software development... I use 'em each and every day!  Really, VMS tools!_K And yes, the workstation on my desktop is a Windows PC, and yes, I also useuG (and sometimes curse) Word, Excel, Outlook, Visio, and more, every day,eG too... indispensable, can't do without 'em.  They *augment*, but do not L supplant, my VMS toolkit... and a terminal emulator (PCterm), rather than anI old VT terminal, is now my "window" into VMS.  My shop is so "integrated"{L that, for some, it's hard to remember where the PC stops and VMS picks up...  G My successful, productive employees know (have learned) that VMS is theiH core, not just some old dinosaur.  And they know (or quickly learn) thatI "tool use" doesn't solve any problems --- brains, seasoned with education&B and experience, and using the right tool in the right context, do!  J Again from my perspective of someone in business who's continually lookingG for computer-saavy candidates, mere "tool use" is *not* what I'm hiringnG for... my criteria continue to be "traditional": solid grounding, and a&E professional degree, in algorithm and data structure design, softwareVJ implementation, and, yes, "programming" ... the more languages (not just C or VB!), the better!  J > But you have it backwards.  The tools already exist.  What doesn't existI > are the tools on a VMS system.  The users don;t want to port the tools,xG > they want to use them.  And until the tools are available on VMS then0I > users (and schools) are going to continue to opt for the machines whereu > those tools exist.  I Again, granted, yes... given acceptance of a redefined "teaching mission"sI for CS.  However, I'd argue that this redefinition is itself misdirected,bK wrong-headed, and that what those of us who hire CS graduates *really* want;L is candidates who have precisely the skills they'd develop during the courseH of *using and understanding* what the VMS platform, among others, has to6 offer.  When it comes to the current crops of "can useI MS-<insert-favorite-tool-here>" resumes, as the old lady on the hamburger(+ commercial used to say, "Where's the beef?";  
 Respectfully,{  @ Lorin Ricker                            Lorin.Ricker@T-NETIX.com
 Lock&Track5 T-NETIX, Inc.                           (303)705-55755 67 Inverness Drive East 8 Englewood, Colorado 80112      http://www.LockTrack.com/  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C023F6.4A69A19Cl Content-Type: text/html; 	charset="iso-8859-1"N+ Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable   1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">o <HTML> <HEAD>9 <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =  charset=3Diso-8859-1">@ <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
 5.5.2650.12">.# <TITLE>Re: Compaq VMS promo</TITLE>  </HEAD>C <BODY>  / <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Bill Gunshannon wrote:</FONT>i </P>  > <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; |&gt; Don't schools teach programming = anymore?</FONT>w </P>  A <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; I don't see what that has to do with the = ! question at hand, but just</FONT>iH <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; to answer your question, no, not particualrly. = Trade schools teach</FONT>G <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; programming.&nbsp; We teach Computer Science, =u which contains</FONT>sB <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; programming in many of it's courses, but = programming is not the</FONT>'A <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; desired end result of the courses.</FONT>m </P>  C <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Boy, how the definition of CS has changed since =iD &quot;my days&quot; in college!&nbsp; Programming as a &quot;trade =C school&quot; course?!!&nbsp; How in the world did the concepts of =yA &quot;design&quot; vs. &quot;utterance&quot; get separated into =sI mutually exclusive topics?&nbsp; In my experience, in no other endeavor =oA is it more true that &quot;the language we speak influences the =a5 thoughts we think&quot; than in software design and =  implementation.</FONT></P>  F <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>With all respect, Bill, I've read and re-read your =C post, and agree with much of it... we're mostly &quot;on the same = @ side&quot; re: getting VMS back into academia.&nbsp; This is a =G complicated issue, and our viewpoints are obviously polar, yours from = H inside, and mine from outside the university environment.&nbsp; Please =: read my following remarks as &quot;discussion&quot;, not =I &quot;attack&quot;, and with apologies for focusing on a few things out =g$ of your original context.</FONT></P>  I <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Haven't you been listening??&nbsp; The fact that =c VMS can reliably run a</FONT>tH <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; huge Oracle database carries no weight in this = environment.</FONT>,B <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; If VMS is to find it's way back into the = academic mainstream,</FONT>aH <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; it must have all the same tools available that = the other OSes offer.</FONT> </P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Well, I'd give a month's pay just to be able to find =B a college-grad candidate who had a clue about:&nbsp; a) database =D normalization (clearly a &quot;concept&quot;) *and* the ability to =G write code which effectively uses such a database;&nbsp; or b) issues =e? of large-database management, tuning and performance (largely =o3 &quot;tool-based&quot; topics, but again, heavily =dI influenced/supplemented by &quot;programming&quot; skills);&nbsp; or c) =oB practical experience to implementing software in a multi-lingual =D environment (for example, a successful employee/contributor to our =I product would use DEC Pascal, C, DCL, TPU, SQL, CLI, HTML, plus several =i? home-brew tools, all in the course of routine development and =tF maintenance);&nbsp; or d) practical knowledge of when and how to use =D the VMS Debugger;&nbsp; or e) using sanity and wisdom, rather than =C flights of fancy, in interpreting and correcting an error message = < (*any* error message, regardless of OS/platform).</FONT></P>  > <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>In *my* world, data (as embodied in large, =? multi-user, high-performance databases) is the &quot;valuable =.E commodity&quot;, but programming skills are absolutely necessary to =.7 manage, preserve and utilize these resource.</FONT></P>p  > <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; As for teaching students to write new =  applications, that's what</FONT>G <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; trade schools do.&nbsp; English class doesn't =n teach (explicitly) how</FONT>eA <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; to write a dramatic short story or a SF =t
 novel.</FONT>m </P>  I <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Respectfully:&nbsp; Huh?!!!&nbsp; Last time I looked, =tI an English class taught writing by *doing it*, i.e., by writing stories =lE (if not full-blown novels).&nbsp; IICR, the &quot;prerequisite tool =rE set&quot; for writing was, and still is, paper and pencil... yes, a =cE word processor is a very effective tool for writing, but it's not a =hH requirement!&nbsp; That's an argument for productivity and throughput, =? even form over content, but not for basic writing concepts or =m skills.</FONT></P>  C <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; What it teaches are the tools necessary to =g  accomplish these and many</FONT>> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; other tasks.&nbsp; CS is exactly the =8 same.&nbsp; We teach tools, concepts and methods.</FONT>H <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Programming for programmings sake is what they = teach in trade schools.</FONT> </P>  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>This is the third time you've made this point about = , &quot;trade schools&quot;... do I detect a =< &quot;look-down-your-nose&quot; tone for this topic?&nbsp; = ;-)</FONT></P>  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>In my college days, teaching and learning &quot;how = I to program&quot; (be it FORTRAN, Algol, Pascal, Lisp, SNOBOL, whatever) = D was a respectable academic topic, and was seen as inseparable from =? basic concepts of algorithmic and data-structure design, code =o< optimization, study of algorithmic characteristics (P- vs. =F NP-incompleteness, efficiency, etc.), all grounded on the foundation =? textbooks of Knuth, Wirth, Dijkstra and many others.</FONT></P>t  C <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Has all of this been somehow lost, forgotten or =eD intentionally dropped in current CS curricula?&nbsp; Or has it, as =G previously noted, just been renamed &quot;computer engineering&quot;, =a; and my concerns are groundless?&nbsp; But telling me that =oH &quot;programming&quot; is a trade-school, separable, topic from these =9 computational foundations concerns me greatly!</FONT></P>i  I <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&quot;Programming for programming's sake&quot;?&nbsp; =yB IMHO, there's no such thing... Skill, mastery and expertise with =F programming languages (plural!) is *the* most fundamental and useful =H *tool* there is!&nbsp; If &quot;tools-oriented&quot; curricula has any == validity at all, then relegating &quot;programming&quot; to = 8 trade-schools is really throwing the baby out with the = bath-water!</FONT></P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Where are the tools to do this with VMS??&nbsp; =  See the point? It doesn't</FONT>G <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; matter how superior VMS is.&nbsp; If I have a =f" handful of screws, a hammer</FONT>B <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; is not the right tool for the job.&nbsp; =9 Without the tools, the machine is just a doorstop.</FONT>i </P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Well, yes, I do see your point.&nbsp; But you may be =E missing the other, overarching point, namely, the apparent shift in =oA emphasis in CS curricula from solid software development (e.g., = F &quot;programming&quot;) concepts towards the perception that what's =H important is to &quot;teach the use of tools.&quot;&nbsp; I agree that =G if tool-use is &quot;the mission&quot; for CS departments today, then =dD yes, determine &quot;the tool-set&quot; which is likely to get the =I greatest number of jobs for the greatest number of graduates, and teach =e that.</FONT></P>  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Besides, last time I looked, things like compilers, = F command-interpreters, linkers, text editors, and debuggers were, and =G are, fundamental tools for software development... I use 'em each and =hG every day!&nbsp; Really, VMS tools!&nbsp; And yes, the workstation on =sG my desktop is a Windows PC, and yes, I also use (and sometimes curse) =eI Word, Excel, Outlook, Visio, and more, every day, too... indispensable, =iI can't do without 'em.&nbsp; They *augment*, but do not supplant, my VMS =(D toolkit... and a terminal emulator (PCterm), rather than an old VT =F terminal, is now my &quot;window&quot; into VMS.&nbsp; My shop is so =H &quot;integrated&quot; that, for some, it's hard to remember where the =' PC stops and VMS picks up...</FONT></P>_  B <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>My successful, productive employees know (have =F learned) that VMS is the core, not just some old dinosaur.&nbsp; And =F they know (or quickly learn) that &quot;tool use&quot; doesn't solve =F any problems --- brains, seasoned with education and experience, and =9 using the right tool in the right context, do!</FONT></P>r  D <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Again from my perspective of someone in business =? who's continually looking for computer-saavy candidates, mere =IB &quot;tool use&quot; is *not* what I'm hiring for... my criteria =@ continue to be &quot;traditional&quot;: solid grounding, and a =G professional degree, in algorithm and data structure design, software =d@ implementation, and, yes, &quot;programming&quot; ... the more =5 languages (not just C or VB!), the better!</FONT></P>g  C <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; But you have it backwards.&nbsp; The tools =.. already exist.&nbsp; What doesn't exist</FONT>H <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; are the tools on a VMS system.&nbsp; The users =$ don;t want to port the tools,</FONT>D <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; they want to use them.&nbsp; And until the =& tools are available on VMS then</FONT>F <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; users (and schools) are going to continue to =! opt for the machines where</FONT>t1 <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; those tools exist.</FONT>@ </P>  @ <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Again, granted, yes... given acceptance of a =I redefined &quot;teaching mission&quot; for CS.&nbsp; However, I'd argue =uF that this redefinition is itself misdirected, wrong-headed, and that =H what those of us who hire CS graduates *really* want is candidates who =F have precisely the skills they'd develop during the course of *using =@ and understanding* what the VMS platform, among others, has to =B offer.&nbsp; When it comes to the current crops of &quot;can use =H MS-&lt;insert-favorite-tool-here&gt;&quot; resumes, as the old lady on =9 the hamburger commercial used to say, &quot;Where's the =b beef?&quot;</FONT></P>  & <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Respectfully,</FONT> </P>   <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Lorin =lI Ricker&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=eI &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=e8 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lorin.Ricker@T-NETIX.com</FONT>( <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Lock&amp;Track</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>T-NETIX, =bI Inc.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n=MI bsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n=u% bsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (303)705-5575</FONT>o1 <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>67 Inverness Drive East</FONT>o( <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>Englewood, Colorado =( 80112&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <A =$ HREF=3D"http://www.LockTrack.com/" =6 TARGET=3D"_blank">http://www.LockTrack.com/</A></FONT> </P>   </BODY>e </HTML>r) ------_=_NextPart_001_01C023F6.4A69A19C--i   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:41:24 -0400w0 From: Jim Jennis <jjennis@discovery.fuentez.com> Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo-D Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20000921144124.0093ab80@discovery.fuentez.com>  % At 05:45 PM 9/21/2000 GMT, you wrote:aJ >In article <Cca1SFdg$mbc@eisner.decus.org>, young_r@eisner.decus.org (Rob
 Young) wrote:M >>D >>        Lorin... I feel your pain.  But checking my old ama matter1 >>        reveals they only dumbed it down a bit:9 >>% >>http://www.cs.widener.edu/csci.html  >>D >>        There is still enough math to choke a horse and my old fav+ >>        symbolic logic is still required.l > F >http://www.juniata.edu/registrar/poes/computerscience.htm still has a	 healthly s >dose of mathematics as well :)o  C Same at Carnegie Mellon, my old alma-mater..strong core of math and- statistics + these  7 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/burks/scs/courses.all.htmlo    8 --------------------------------------------------------7 FSC - Building Better Information Technology Solutions-s7       from the Production Floor to the Customer's Door.t8 --------------------------------------------------------5 Jim Jennis, Technical Director for Commercial Systemsh Fuentez Systems Concepts, Inc. 1 Discovery Place, Suite 2 Martinsburg, WV. 25401 USA   # Phone: +001 (304) 263-0163 ext. 235  Fax:   +001 (304) 263-0702% Email: jjennis@discovery.fuentez.com n        jhjennis@shentel.net & WEB: http://www.discovery.fuentez.com/   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 15:43:14 -0500* From: young_r@eisner.decus.org (Rob Young) Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoe+ Message-ID: <faHWA19hRMqN@eisner.decus.org>'  v In article <000921183315.3972@nplvms.physics.ox.ac.uk>, John Macallister <j.macallister1@physics.oxford.ac.uk> writes:E > At one time it was necessary to learn a programming language to get G >  anything out of a computer. Nowadays most people, including schools,0F >  can concentrate on their applications without the need to learn any >  programming language. > E > If your career involves writing applications for computers you will<I >  need programming languages but most people can be experts in their owndB >  fields now without any significant programming language skills. >   @ 	Bzzzzt.  Systems affect each other.  We need renaissance people: 	for a VMS renaissance.  You spend a great deal of time in@ 	the submarine service learning about a lot of different systems< 	you may never touch.  However, if they are related it might@ 	be a good idea to know about them.  The idea in the sub surface: 	is that your decents (dives) should  >>> ALWAYS <<< equal> 	the number of ascents (surfaces).  I heard it was a good idea> 	to have the number equal out.  Problems arise when the number3 	of dives are even *slightly* larger than surfaces.   = 	"I/O ... why should I care about I/O?   I'm just a point andr 	click programmer!!!"    	Okay.   				Rob    ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 18:51:29 GMT2 From: mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu (David Mathog) Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoe, Message-ID: <8qdlbh$h4b@gap.cco.caltech.edu>  ` In article <8qcvnv$11dj$1@info.cs.uofs.edu>, bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >m6 >We teach Computer Science, which contains programmingG >in many of it's courses, but programming is not the desired end resultl >of the courses.  	 AHA!!!!  l  G At last a rationale for why so much of the academic code I encounter isrJ unadulterated crap.  The grad. students should have skipped the CS coursesB where they "learned" to program and gone to trade school instead!    <SNIP>  J >But you have it backwards.  The tools already exist.  What doesn't exist H >are the tools on a VMS system.  The users don;t want to port the tools,F >they want to use them.  And until the tools are available on VMS thenH >users (and schools) are going to continue to opt for the machines where >those tools exist.    Exactlym     David Mathog mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.eduV? Manager, sequence analysis facility, biology division, Caltech C   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 16:02:24 -0500* From: young_r@eisner.decus.org (Rob Young) Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo:+ Message-ID: <4K0alT81NwgI@eisner.decus.org>o  w In article <3.0.5.32.20000921144124.0093ab80@discovery.fuentez.com>, Jim Jennis <jjennis@discovery.fuentez.com> writes:r  E > Same at Carnegie Mellon, my old alma-mater..strong core of math and   A 	Wow!  Carnegie!  Somebody that knows how to spell ama matter ;-)l
 	Show off!   				Robn   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:23:30 -0600y- From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>h Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoe; Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768168@DENXCH>a  J This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand< this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02401.6CD188D4e Content-Type: text/plain;  	charset="iso-8859-1" + Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable,   young_r@eisner.decus.org wrote:   5 > (Note:  not flame bait... point and click ties into-1 > where we are.  Dread the day when "they" decide5/ > the Space Shuttle can be point and click also02 > <-- insert favorite disaster waiting to happen).  H Rob:  Yes, it does... It all suggests a clich=E9d scenario worthy of a = cheapnF sci-fi novel, wherein a future society is ruled by some vast automatonE (mega-computer) which is serviced by techo-acolytes, all of whom have = forgotten (were never taught) how the machine actually works."  D It's just my own hiring and interviewing experiences, albeit limitedI regionally and to a relatively small pool of prospectives, that suggest =l suchF a worst-case scenario to me... but it really does seem at times like = we'repF moving towards just such a situation.  How many recent college grads = haveF you interviewed recently who even had a clue what "memory management",F "resource sharing" or "scheduling algorithms" really are, for example?  A If a CS/CE college/professional degree is really now viewed and =  provided "asF a commodity", dumbed down to least-common-denominator material, then = ourm@ universities have indeed really "lost the thread".  Some of my =
 colleaguesF have tried to convince me that the current state of affairs is somehowG natural, a result of "what the market will bear", and that this marks atI "maturation of the industry."  Hmph... I don't know, it just brings out =n theH cynic in me.  H Certainly, there's a disconnect between the academic world and many of = usG "out here" in business/industry, and a lot of the time, I feel like a =h lostI and lonely voice in the woods.  BTW, my own BS/Engr. from Purdue in '74 =a wasuH interdisciplinary, consisting of the "tough stuff" in math, CS, EE and = ME, 2 so I *do* have a point-of-comparison for my views.  
 Best regards,r   -- Lorin  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02401.6CD188D4o Content-Type: text/html; 	charset="iso-8859-1" + Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable   1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">f <HTML> <HEAD>9 <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =a charset=3Diso-8859-1">@ <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
 5.5.2650.12">f# <TITLE>Re: Compaq VMS promo</TITLE>f </HEAD>g <BODY>  8 <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>young_r@eisner.decus.org wrote:</FONT> </P>  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; (Note:&nbsp; not flame bait... point and click =E ties into</FONT>@ <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; where we are.&nbsp; Dread the day when = &quot;they&quot; decide</FONT>B <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; the Space Shuttle can be point and click = also</FONT>2D <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; &lt;-- insert favorite disaster waiting to = happen).</FONT>/ </P>  @ <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Rob:&nbsp; Yes, it does... It all suggests a =E clich=E9d scenario worthy of a cheap sci-fi novel, wherein a future ==B society is ruled by some vast automaton (mega-computer) which is =D serviced by techo-acolytes, all of whom have forgotten (were never =2 taught) how the machine actually works.</FONT></P>  I <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>It's just my own hiring and interviewing experiences, =n= albeit limited regionally and to a relatively small pool of = G prospectives, that suggest such a worst-case scenario to me... but it =lA really does seem at times like we're moving towards just such a =oE situation.&nbsp; How many recent college grads have you interviewed =eB recently who even had a clue what &quot;memory management&quot;, =C &quot;resource sharing&quot; or &quot;scheduling algorithms&quot; = # really are, for example?</FONT></P>e  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>If a CS/CE college/professional degree is really now =@ viewed and provided &quot;as a commodity&quot;, dumbed down to =F least-common-denominator material, then our universities have indeed =F really &quot;lost the thread&quot;.&nbsp; Some of my colleagues have =C tried to convince me that the current state of affairs is somehow =uF natural, a result of &quot;what the market will bear&quot;, and that =F this marks a &quot;maturation of the industry.&quot;&nbsp; Hmph... I =: don't know, it just brings out the cynic in me.</FONT></P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Certainly, there's a disconnect between the academic =G world and many of us &quot;out here&quot; in business/industry, and a = = lot of the time, I feel like a lost and lonely voice in the =u: woods.&nbsp; BTW, my own BS/Engr. from Purdue in '74 was =G interdisciplinary, consisting of the &quot;tough stuff&quot; in math, =v< CS, EE and ME, so I *do* have a point-of-comparison for my = views.</FONT></P>s  & <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Best regards,</FONT> </P>  ! <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>-- Lorin</FONT>r </P>   </BODY>o </HTML>e) ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02401.6CD188D4--d   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:33:57 -0600n- From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>T Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoa; Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768169@DENXCH>>  J This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand< this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02402.E2D8D1EEs Content-Type: text/plain;e 	charset="iso-8859-1"   I > I thought jail mgt. was 6 gorilla-sized guards with clubs to one inmateq$ > with wrist and ankle shackles.  ;)  J Ha!  In Phoenix, rumor has it that the county sheriff is still housing 'emG in tents, feeding them green-baloney sandwiches and makes 'em wear pink;; underwear to keep 'em too embarrassed to try escaping!  ;-)   L Kidding aside, technology has infiltrated even this domain... Turns out thatI managing inmate and facility records for a typical county jail is akin tooK maintaining business records for a small city, and requires what amounts tonB a mission-critical, 24(7, multi-user and high performance business
 app/database.,  D We use VMS and Rdb, plus a pile of internally developed middle-ware,J app-support and applications, because they're the best-fit to the problem.J Appl is client-server, with VMS/Rdb doing the workload honors, and our ownI Windows/VB client putting the "pretty pictures" on the users' PC screens.eH Lots of web-integration, too.  A real mixed-bag, overall, but one that'sF been carefully designed, chosen and worked out for a lot of real-worldA reasons... 'S why I need, but usually can't find, good, smart andq well-prepared people...r   -- Lorin  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02402.E2D8D1EE= Content-Type: text/html; 	charset="iso-8859-1"u+ Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable;  1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">a <HTML> <HEAD>9 <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =  charset=3Diso-8859-1">@ <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
 5.5.2650.12">e# <TITLE>Re: Compaq VMS promo</TITLE>  </HEAD>o <BODY>  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; I thought jail mgt. was 6 gorilla-sized guards =f with clubs to one inmate</FONT>aF <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; with wrist and ankle shackles.&nbsp; ;)</FONT> </P>  F <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Ha!&nbsp; In Phoenix, rumor has it that the county =C sheriff is still housing 'em in tents, feeding them green-baloney =e> sandwiches and makes 'em wear pink underwear to keep 'em too =1 embarrassed to try escaping!&nbsp; ;-)</FONT></P>t  G <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Kidding aside, technology has infiltrated even this =eE domain... Turns out that managing inmate and facility records for a =uI typical county jail is akin to maintaining business records for a small =aI city, and requires what amounts to a mission-critical, 24(7, multi-user =k6 and high performance business app/database.</FONT></P>  A <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>We use VMS and Rdb, plus a pile of internally =ZF developed middle-ware, app-support and applications, because they're =H the best-fit to the problem.&nbsp; Appl is client-server, with VMS/Rdb =F doing the workload honors, and our own Windows/VB client putting the =E &quot;pretty pictures&quot; on the users' PC screens.&nbsp; Lots of =tG web-integration, too.&nbsp; A real mixed-bag, overall, but one that's =xH been carefully designed, chosen and worked out for a lot of real-world =C reasons... 'S why I need, but usually can't find, good, smart and = " well-prepared people...</FONT></P>  ! <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>-- Lorin</FONT>m </P>   </BODY>q </HTML>w) ------_=_NextPart_001_01C02402.E2D8D1EE--o   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:41:08 -0400o* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promou- Message-ID: <39CA5644.7E4180D5@tsoft-inc.com>    Bill Gunshannon wrote: > 4 > In article <39c9bccd.1272809252@news.newsguy.com>,* >  A.Greig@virgin.net (Alan Greig) writes: > |>G > |> Make sure yoiu give the systems (at least at first) to sites which E > |> were once heavy VMS users and still have VMS advocates currentlyg% > |> forced to admin student systems.u > I > I am sure that most other schools are the same as us, in shich case youoG > are way too late for that.  They are either gone or converted by now.tC > VMS has been out of the academic mainstream for too long already.d > K > |>                                  Appoint a territory VMS ijn educationyH > |> manager. Have the machines rever back to Compaq if not put into VMS > |> student use.< > F > The result of this would be for the schools to turn them down in theI > first place.  Space is a very expensive commodity and no one will wasterF > the space for tools that can't do the job.  Until VMS systems can doF > all that the current systems are doing (and we're not talking OracleK > servers here, we're talking desktops!) VMS will not get back into generalsI > academic use.  The majority of college people (students, faculty, staffOH > and administrators) are really just users.  They want a tool and not a > toy.  O I'd first say, before the VMS faithful get a rope and go hunting for Bill, thatqN from multiple contacts, I feel that Bill would really like to have VMS back inP education, but is stating (from his perspective) the realities of the situation.  M However, on this last issue, I will disagree.  Many may turn down free AlphasrM with restrictions.  But there will be some who will be interested.  And since=K VMS is currently in a position where it would be best to carefully pick theiJ fights it engages in, go with those interested enough to try.  First, it'sK better than nothing.   Second, these people (academia) talk to each other. PM When/if some good comes out of the places that do use VMS, the knowledge willr# get around.  Gotta start somewhere.n  O As for the tools, forget 100% VMS solutions.  Have the billy-boxes for the wordsN processing and such.  Also have a good terminal emulator on them (enhancementsO could be project work) and have them on the network so that LAT/TELNET sessionsn on VMS are a mouse click away.  P As for the target students, it's not the users, it's the few that will work withP and implement IT solutions when they reach the workforce.  That's who we want toH be familiar with VMS.  Not saying others wouldn't be good, but they're a secondary target.&   Dave   -- p4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:42:45 -0400>* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoa- Message-ID: <39CA56A5.3A68A967@tsoft-inc.com>2   Christopher Smith wrote: > / > On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, David J. Dachtera wrote:. > : > > My step daughter corrected me about this last weekend: > I > > "Computer 'Science'" students learn how to use "canned" applications.  > D > > "Computer Engineering" students learn hardware, architecture and, > > programming, including o.s. development. > J > So, in other words, computer science (as in the study of the theoretical  > aspects of computing) is dead?  L Maybe not totally on target, but, another reason to introduce billy-boy to a rope.l   --  4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------   Date: 22 Sep 2000 00:21:38 GMT1 From: bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)- Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo , Message-ID: <8qe8mi$1lfi$1@info.cs.uofs.edu>  C Well, this seems to have been badly misunderstood.  Let me try and   clarify what i meant.4  ; In article <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768167@DENXCH>,s0  Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com> writes: |>   |> Bill Gunshannon wrote:u |> .0 |> > |> Don't schools teach programming anymore? |> 2H |> > I don't see what that has to do with the question at hand, but justG |> > to answer your question, no, not particualrly. Trade schools teacha< |> > programming.  We teach Computer Science, which containsD |> > programming in many of it's courses, but programming is not the' |> > desired end result of the courses.g |> tH |> Boy, how the definition of CS has changed since "my days" in college!- |> Programming as a "trade school" course?!! s  G As a course, yes.  Trade school material. And many little colleges witheD un-acredited programs will give you a degree after taking a bunch ofE these courses.  Programming is a part of Computer Science, but not a dE particularly big part.  It's like saying all you need to speak frenchz is a vocabulary.  G CS is a lot more than that.  Radio Shack used to teach "Programming" atdH night in their computer stores.  Hardly Computer Science.  You don't getH a CS degree by taking Fortran 101, Pascal 101, C 102 and Java 105.  factJ is, if all you learn is in your first course is the syntax of a particularJ language, it will be mostly useless and will result in the kind of garbageJ we see in the free software world every day.  Do you really think that allK this garbage is being written by people with CS Degrees??  There is not onefL course in our entire CS Program that contains the name of a language in it'sI title.  And we frequently send people away who want to take a course from G us to learn C or Java.  We don't offer that.  We use C and C++ and JavavI and just about any other language you can think of.  There are still some.H people who believe "the right language for the job" rather than one sizeE fits all.  That's why we don't teach "programming" we teach Computer  G Science.  Once you have mastered that, you can program in any language.nH Plus, you shold have the knowledge to pick the language most appropriate to the task at hand.    K Continuing Education, upstairs will teach you C++ or Java without requiringhI that you have any previous experience or learning.  That's a trade schoolt> teaching.  We teach computer Science and Software Engineering.    Trust me, there is a difference.     N |>                                           How in the world did the conceptsL |> of "design" vs. "utterance" get separated into mutually exclusive topics?  L Nobody here said they were mutually exclusive.  Of course, there are lots ofL schools out there where the "utterance" is all they care about.  The studentK learns to write some silly little thing in C++ and leaves thinking they are-, a programmer.  After all, they got a degree.  O |> In my experience, in no other endeavor is it more true that "the language we F |> speak influences the thoughts we think" than in software design and |> implementation.  J That's true. And that's why concentrating on the language rather than the I underlying concepts is such a problem.  The student needs to learn how to J identify and analyze the problem before he sits down to code the solution.J This includes picking a language appropriate to the task.  Once one learnsB software design and implementation, the language is merely syntax.   |> :O |> With all respect, Bill, I've read and re-read your post, and agree with much O |> of it... we're mostly "on the same side" re: getting VMS back into academia.sM |> This is a complicated issue, and our viewpoints are obviously polar, yours0N |> from inside, and mine from outside the university environment.  Please readM |> my following remarks as "discussion", not "attack", and with apologies for 9 |> focusing on a few things out of your original context.r  G Well, I will try and follow along and clarify anything I didn't expressi- particularly well the first time around.  :-)t   |> iG |> > Haven't you been listening??  The fact that VMS can reliably run ar@ |> > huge Oracle database carries no weight in this environment.B |> > If VMS is to find it's way back into the academic mainstream,I |> > it must have all the same tools available that the other OSes offer.a |>  F |> Well, I'd give a month's pay just to be able to find a college-gradH |> candidate who had a clue about:  a) database normalization (clearly aK |> "concept") *and* the ability to write code which effectively uses such aeO |> database;  or b) issues of large-database management, tuning and performancetN |> (largely "tool-based" topics, but again, heavily influenced/supplemented byN |> "programming" skills);  or c) practical experience to implementing software< |> in a multi-lingual environment (for example, a successfulN |> employee/contributor to our product would use DEC Pascal, C, DCL, TPU, SQL,H |> CLI, HTML, plus several home-brew tools, all in the course of routine  F If you are expecting students to come out of college with specialized D experience in all those languages, your never going to be satisfied.F How can you expect a recent college grad to have "practical experienceE to implementing software in a multi-lingual environment"?? He is justtC coming out of school, he has no practical experience except what hetH may have gained during an internship or summer job.  Semesters run aboutD 14 weeks.  Everything for a particular course has to be completed inB that period of time.  That kind of discourages any chance of doingD major projects.  Experience is what you get after you leave college.  N |> development and maintenance);  or d) practical knowledge of when and how toO |> use the VMS Debugger;  or e) using sanity and wisdom, rather than flights ofeO |> fancy, in interpreting and correcting an error message (*any* error message,> |> regardless of OS/platform).  G I am sure that all of this is taught, conceptually, in any of the majoroD University's CS Programs.  Answer me this, when you are interviewingH candidates for a job, do you accept a degree from any college the same??H Do you base your decision on the size or public perception of the schoolF as a whole??  Do you check to see if the the CS Program is acredited??G Reading course catalogs is nice, but that's the school blowing it's owndE horn.  Acreditation requires examination of a program by someone fromiG outside.  And what they require is usually published information.  JusteD remember, you can't expect a 22 year old BS grad to have 8 years of  experience..   |> lJ |> In *my* world, data (as embodied in large, multi-user, high-performanceE |> databases) is the "valuable commodity", but programming skills arecG |> absolutely necessary to manage, preserve and utilize these resource.r  J I agree, but many people associate "programming skills" with the knowledgeH of a language.  I think it goes a lot deeper than that.  And I think theH knowledge of specific languages is the least important part of the whole process.   |> sD |> > As for teaching students to write new applications, that's whatD |> > trade schools do.  English class doesn't teach (explicitly) how3 |> > to write a dramatic short story or a SF novel.l |> aN |> Respectfully:  Huh?!!!  Last time I looked, an English class taught writingM |> by *doing it*, i.e., by writing stories (if not full-blown novels).  IICR,=G |> the "prerequisite tool set" for writing was, and still is, paper ando
 |> pencil... a  G So then a knowledge of grammar and sentence structure is not necesary?? L No need for learning things like plot development or character development??L The paper and pencil, like Pascal or C in programming, are just a very smallH part of it.  Everybody has a paper and pencil, few people actually writeG the great american novel.  Without all the underlying requirements, the;G paper and pencil are useless.  And so to with programming.  I can teach H almost anyone the entire syntax of Pascal in a week.  That will not make them programmers.   L |>           yes, a word processor is a very effective tool for writing, butO |> it's not a requirement!  That's an argument for productivity and throughput,rH |> even form over content, but not for basic writing concepts or skills.  E I agree, it is the underlying concepts that are important and not the  pencil and paper.<   |>  I |> > What it teaches are the tools necessary to accomplish these and many/H |> > other tasks.  CS is exactly the same.  We teach tools, concepts and |> methods.-K |> > Programming for programmings sake is what they teach in trade schools.i |> kN |> This is the third time you've made this point about "trade schools"... do I; |> detect a "look-down-your-nose" tone for this topic?  ;-)i  K Maybe, I dislike anyone who purports to be something they are not.  We have L a local school here now who has started advertising a "degree" in carpentry.J Your complaining about the quality of the grads you see, when every littleJ hole-in-the-wall can pass out "degrees" what do you think this is going to1 do to the pool of applicants you have to screen??h   |> hM |> In my college days, teaching and learning "how to program" (be it FORTRAN,yO |> Algol, Pascal, Lisp, SNOBOL, whatever) was a respectable academic topic, andyA |> was seen as inseparable from basic concepts of algorithmic andtA |> data-structure design, code optimization, study of algorithmicfM |> characteristics (P- vs. NP-incompleteness, efficiency, etc.), all groundedcI |> on the foundation textbooks of Knuth, Wirth, Dijkstra and many others.d  I It is inseperable.  It is also one of the smallest and least important of J all those tasks.  Languages are nothing more than syntax.  If you have theK basics, you can program in any language in short order, even if you have tonK keep the reference manual at your elbow.  But without those basic concepts,tL it doesn't matter how many languages you know, you won't be able to program.N You may be able to throw together buggy code, but then, we already have enough people doing that.   |> nK |> Has all of this been somehow lost, forgotten or intentionally dropped ineK |> current CS curricula?  Or has it, as previously noted, just been renamedeO |> "computer engineering", and my concerns are groundless?  But telling me that;M |> "programming" is a trade-school, separable, topic from these computationalT# |> foundations concerns me greatly!t  J I guess that's where the confusion came from.  I'm not advocating teachingK "programming" in trade schools, they are.  And the successfully lure people J into their programs with things like "Why go to college and learn all thatH unimportant stuff like writing properly or speaking properly or logic orJ even that boring math stuff when you can come here and become a programmerL in six weeks.!"  Of all our graduates since I started here 10 years ago onlyI one has not left here either for grad school or a job paying 30-50% aboveaI the average.  And he didn't look cause he went off to be a bicycle racer./   |> PI |> "Programming for programming's sake"?  IMHO, there's no such thing...    H I agree, but ther eare a lot of people who don't.  People who think thatE there is no particular skill or ability in writing computer programs.   O |>                                                                       Skill, K |> mastery and expertise with programming languages (plural!) is *the* moste+ |> fundamental and useful *tool* there is! e  I I don't agree with this.  Languages are mere syntax.  I learned Pascal intJ less than a week by reading Jensen & Wirth's User Manual and Report.  And J then went straight into a major distributed data program.  It was a strongJ background in the really important stuff that made this possible.  Without1 that basis, the book would have been meaningless.    L |>                                         If "tools-oriented" curricula hasI |> any validity at all, then relegating "programming" to trade-schools isa4 |> really throwing the baby out with the bath-water!  H Programming is a part of every course a CS candidate gets here.  it justK isn't a subject unto itself.  MOst of our students have had some experience0J with at least 4 languages and two different language paradigms by the time they graduate.   |> 4I |> > Where are the tools to do this with VMS??  See the point? It doesn't9I |> > matter how superior VMS is.  If I have a handful of screws, a hammereO |> > is not the right tool for the job.  Without the tools, the machine is just  |> a doorstop. |> yE |> Well, yes, I do see your point.  But you may be missing the other,nL |> overarching point, namely, the apparent shift in emphasis in CS curriculaM |> from solid software development (e.g., "programming") concepts towards thevD |> perception that what's important is to "teach the use of tools."   M I don't see where anyone said that CS was "teaching tools" except one totally J unsubstatiated claim that CS was "just using canned packages".  Not at any school I know.  L |>                                                                   I agreeH |> that if tool-use is "the mission" for CS departments today, then yes,N |> determine "the tool-set" which is likely to get the greatest number of jobs8 |> for the greatest number of graduates, and teach that.  L We are definitely against that.  Which is why we don't teach SAP even though9 the business school thinks it would be a real good thing.e   |>  L |> Besides, last time I looked, things like compilers, command-interpreters,L |> linkers, text editors, and debuggers were, and are, fundamental tools forL |> software development... I use 'em each and every day!  Really, VMS tools!N |> And yes, the workstation on my desktop is a Windows PC, and yes, I also useJ |> (and sometimes curse) Word, Excel, Outlook, Visio, and more, every day,0 |> too... indispensable, can't do without 'em.    J There you have it.  And when the there is room for only one machine on theM desktop, which one do you think is going to win over the beancounters?? (yes,iK we have them in Universities too.  And pointy-hairs too.)  So, now you backtL to saying well, let them access VMS servers from their PC desktops.  But whyL would they do that??  The PC already has all the tools they need on it.  AndL the overall quality or reliability just isn't an issue so in the eyes of theN user community and the administration, it's unnecessary expenditure.  Face it,K the people who make the decisions are the ones who need to be sold.  In themI case of Unix, this was done over a long period of time by infiltration.  .H Colleges used Unix and eventually these users moved into decision makingI positions.  Then the PC came along.  And it has now been around that most'L of the Unix people have been supplanted by PC weenies.  If VMS is to reclaimM this position, it will have to do it the same way.  It won't happen tomorrow. M And if no one does anything, it won't happen at all.  Quality and reliabilityFL have never been top deciding factors in the survival of products in the real world.  J |>                                              They *augment*, but do notO |> supplant, my VMS toolkit... and a terminal emulator (PCterm), rather than an:L |> old VT terminal, is now my "window" into VMS.  My shop is so "integrated"O |> that, for some, it's hard to remember where the PC stops and VMS picks up...  |> sJ |> My successful, productive employees know (have learned) that VMS is theK |> core, not just some old dinosaur.  And they know (or quickly learn) thatiL |> "tool use" doesn't solve any problems --- brains, seasoned with educationE |> and experience, and using the right tool in the right context, do!h |> dM |> Again from my perspective of someone in business who's continually lookingtJ |> for computer-saavy candidates, mere "tool use" is *not* what I'm hiringJ |> for... my criteria continue to be "traditional": solid grounding, and aH |> professional degree, in algorithm and data structure design, softwareM |> implementation, and, yes, "programming" ... the more languages (not just C- |> or VB!), the better!-  K As I said above, all our students end out using at least 4 languages.  It'saI just that we don't teach language courses for their own sake.  They learnuG the language required for the task.  But mostly, they learn how to pickyC the right language and what to do with it once they have picked it.0   |> AM |> > But you have it backwards.  The tools already exist.  What doesn't existlL |> > are the tools on a VMS system.  The users don;t want to port the tools,J |> > they want to use them.  And until the tools are available on VMS thenL |> > users (and schools) are going to continue to opt for the machines where |> > those tools exist.c |> pL |> Again, granted, yes... given acceptance of a redefined "teaching mission"L |> for CS.  However, I'd argue that this redefinition is itself misdirected,N |> wrong-headed, and that what those of us who hire CS graduates *really* wantO |> is candidates who have precisely the skills they'd develop during the course K |> of *using and understanding* what the VMS platform, among others, has tor |> offer.  c  I But the point is you have to get VMS on the desktop or no one is going to I use it.  To get it on the desktop it is going to need the applications toaH do all the things that the PC on the desktop currently does.  And it hasD to do it in the manner that the users want.  That means WYSIWYG WordI Processing and not LaTeX or runoff.  That means true spreadsheets and notdJ MiniTab.  And my point is that these applications already exist.  Just notJ ported to VMS.  But they could.  They are free and not impossible to port.K Not only that, at the same time as the porting effort they could be cleaned M up.  This would then make the VMS version the most stable and most productiveeM of all the versions.  Yet more good marketing for VMS.  But someone has to doa it.   J Ssadly, this debate seems to have again degenerated just like it did a few< months ago and a few months before that into camps that say: 1) VMS doesn't need these apps.y orE 2) They are dirty Unix apps and we shouldn't dirty our hands on them.e or7 3) It's really the colleges fault for not teaching VMS.a or T) 4) there really isn't any problem at all.e or whatever.  K Unfortunately, none of this moves anyone any closer to solving the problem.sI I've said my piece.  I know what my users want to see on the desktop.  IfeK VMS doesn't have it, they will continue to buy computers that do.  And more J and more students will leave here thinking the computing world consists ofJ PC's and anything else is an obsolete dinosaur that just can't get the jobL done.  May not be true, but decisions are made on perception much more than I fact.  Just ask any advertising man as you spill your Pepsi on your Nike e3 sneakers cause your drooling over that passing BMW.   
 All the best.d   bill   -- aJ Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolvesD bill@cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton   |A Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   g   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 22:06:01 -0400/ From: jordan@lisa.gemair.com (Jordan Henderson)h Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promoe* Message-ID: <8qeeq9$gpo$1@lisa.gemair.com>  - In article <39CA5644.7E4180D5@tsoft-inc.com>,h, David A Froble  <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote: >Bill Gunshannon wrote:  >> a5 >> In article <39c9bccd.1272809252@news.newsguy.com>,s+ >>  A.Greig@virgin.net (Alan Greig) writes:  >> |> H >> |> Make sure yoiu give the systems (at least at first) to sites whichF >> |> were once heavy VMS users and still have VMS advocates currently& >> |> forced to admin student systems. >> nJ >> I am sure that most other schools are the same as us, in shich case youH >> are way too late for that.  They are either gone or converted by now.D >> VMS has been out of the academic mainstream for too long already. >> nL >> |>                                  Appoint a territory VMS ijn educationI >> |> manager. Have the machines rever back to Compaq if not put into VMSu >> |> student use. >> eG >> The result of this would be for the schools to turn them down in theaJ >> first place.  Space is a very expensive commodity and no one will wasteG >> the space for tools that can't do the job.  Until VMS systems can dobG >> all that the current systems are doing (and we're not talking OracleaL >> servers here, we're talking desktops!) VMS will not get back into generalJ >> academic use.  The majority of college people (students, faculty, staffI >> and administrators) are really just users.  They want a tool and not a) >> toy.  >mP >I'd first say, before the VMS faithful get a rope and go hunting for Bill, thatO >from multiple contacts, I feel that Bill would really like to have VMS back in Q >education, but is stating (from his perspective) the realities of the situation.p >mN >However, on this last issue, I will disagree.  Many may turn down free AlphasN >with restrictions.  But there will be some who will be interested.  And sinceL >VMS is currently in a position where it would be best to carefully pick theK >fights it engages in, go with those interested enough to try.  First, it'saL >better than nothing.   Second, these people (academia) talk to each other. N >When/if some good comes out of the places that do use VMS, the knowledge will$ >get around.  Gotta start somewhere. >iP >As for the tools, forget 100% VMS solutions.  Have the billy-boxes for the wordO >processing and such.  Also have a good terminal emulator on them (enhancements P >could be project work) and have them on the network so that LAT/TELNET sessions >on VMS are a mouse click away.o >eQ >As for the target students, it's not the users, it's the few that will work withrQ >and implement IT solutions when they reach the workforce.  That's who we want tomI >be familiar with VMS.  Not saying others wouldn't be good, but they're aD >secondary target. >a  < I agree.  Other creative things that could be tried would be; to offer HW/SW to cash strapped technical schools and small>: struggling private schools.  Especially targetting areas, < like around NYC where there are employers having a hard time staffing junior VMS people.e  ; Heck, make the deal too good to pass on by offerring Compaqe> Wintel workstations and servers as part of a package with the > VMS systems with the promise that classes will be taught using the VMS systems.  9 There's enough tools for VMS systems to be used to _some_n6 classes.  People still write programs from scratch in 8 Algorithms classes, Numerical analysis classes still mix7 using packages and implementing source algorithms.  Cani7 Academia get Oracle DB Server licenses for educational o6 purposes cheaply?  Database Design and optimization...     >Daver >  >-- 5 >David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450d5 >Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596s? >DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.comz7 >T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486"   -Jordan Hendersoni jordan@greenapple.coml   ------------------------------  % Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 01:41:35 -0400g2 From: rdeininger@mindspring.com (Robert Deininger) Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo L Message-ID: <rdeininger-2209000141360001@user-2iveaa1.dialup.mindspring.com>  D In article <8qe8mi$1lfi$1@info.cs.uofs.edu>, bill@cs.uofs.edu wrote:  E > Well, this seems to have been badly misunderstood.  Let me try and ! > clarify what i meant.  > = > In article <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768167@DENXCH>,o2 >  Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com> writes: > |> i > |> Bill Gunshannon wrote:  > |> l2 > |> > |> Don't schools teach programming anymore?  K There's far too much to comment on point-by-point.  I'll just add a monologtC about my CS schooling.  This was back in the mid-80's.  This thread & makes me realize I'm a geezer already.  F We were computer science.  Computer engineering was where they learnedI mostly about designing and building computers and ICs, i.e. a specializedn
 branch of EE.   H In CS, we had to do LOTS of programming, but we also covered quite a lotF of theory.  There was little emphasis on faddish languages, but we didG end up working with quite a few over the years.  By the end of 4 years,eO the list would typically include Fortran, PL/I, Pascal, C, Algol, Lisp, Snobol,rK RPG, COBOL and an assembler or two. 3 of these (typically Lisp, Snobol, andwM one other) were crammed into one survey class, because it was considered goodmF for us to see a few strange things.  There was enough flexibility thatL you could avoid a language or two and still graduate.  Some avoided Fortran,( some avoided RPG and COBOL, for example.  N One hardware class was required. It covered basic digital logic - AND, OR, NOTO gates, simple interface chips.  The lab project required building and debuggingrL a PDP-8.  Not the original, but a single-board wire-wrapped one.  We started with a "kit" that was already designed.  We had to design, implement, and toggle in our own hardware diagnostics.  This was a nice machine.  You could turn the.4clock off and single-step with a push button.  The kits were expensive, so we had to work in teams of two.  For the final exam of the lab portion, the teacher took our working PDP-8 into the back room, secretly broke it, and gave us 15 minutes to find and fix the problem.  Then he broke it a second time andlet us have another go.  15 minutes or less was an A.  Every additional 5 minutes cost a letter grade. He typically bent a pin on a chip, shorted something, or snipped a wire.  The idea was to see how effective our testing software was. This was a big part of the final grade, and if you failed to find either of the bugs, you were in trouble.  If you were running out of time, he'd give you a hint, but the cost of a hint was a full letter grade for that problem.  V This class was as close as we got to "computer engineering", and most of us were glad!  N There were a number of fairly rigorous upper-level classes that didn't "teach"O programming, but only required you to know how to do it pretty well.  We handedwK in wide-format line printer listings, which gave the profs lots of room to hI write comments about our programs.  They were eager to point out mistakesbG in technique -- wrong kind of loop, poorly subdivided programs, failureuG to use an obvious feature of the language at hand.  The aggressive onesr5 took off points for spelling mistakes -- in comments.l  N There was a graphics class.  We had to implement a lot of standard algorithms,I but the hardware of the day didn't make it too spectacular.  We handed ineN a lot of versatec plotter output, which had pixels big enough to let the profs, find small deviations from the problem spec.  E There was a compiler construction class.  We wrote several compilers. O The output was pseudocode for a fake machine; the prof supplied the interpretervH to run it.  We each submitted several example programs at the beginning.N At the end, we had to run everyone's examples through our compiler and get theF right results.  Once you got the right results, the prof still used upE most of a red pen commenting on your implementation.  The exams were cG reserved for theoretical questions; we didn't write much code for them.s  D There was an OS class.  We wrote a couple of little multi-processingG OS's.  The prof supplied some printer- and terminal-interface routines.mI We had to do the rest (again in pairs).  At the end, the prof sat down at  our system and tried to crash it.  He'd start and stop combinations of interactive processes, printer processes, and whatever else he could think of.    If anything hung, crashed, or interfered with someone else's printing, it was broken and we had to fix it.  (As you might guess, this was the same prof whon liked to bend the pins on the chips of our PDP-8s.)  The OS class was required, and it was generally a show-stopper for the folks who hadn't really learned H about pointers and linked lists a couple of years before.  But it wasn'tG a "programming", "trade school" class.  It was just considered computern science.  K These were just the big, bad classes.  The "smaller" classes involved a lotbP of programming too.  Except for the discrete math class, we were usually handing in programs every week or so.l     So y'all can understand my shock when I hear that CS majors don't learn programming any more.  I've seen it myself.  Breathless sophomores whoK are losing sleep because their first "machine problem" is due soon - in the9I 8th week of the semester.  Turns out it's only half a page of code.  Ack!e  No wonder microsoft is thriving!  N This past summer I worked with some physics grad students.  One was supposedlyD a computer whiz.  It took me a while to understand the blank look onG her face.  It turned out she had never heard of "editor" or "compiler".fH "Debugger" was more than I was willing to ask about.  She could start up netscape, but only on a PeeCee.t   I guess the rest of us are just old folks, museum pieces, dinosaurs with our brains in our tails.  This could get depressing if we let it.   -- w Robert Deininger rdeininger@mindspring.com    ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 18:36:55 GMT2 From: mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu (David Mathog)) Subject: Re: Compaq VMS promo (education) , Message-ID: <8qdkg7$h4b@gap.cco.caltech.edu>  Y In article <39C8E820.1BA5B74C@bbc.co.uk>, Tim Llewellyn <tim.llewellyn@bbc.co.uk> writes:a > I >> for Linux and a few software ports, so that I can convert all of theseu > U >.... get on with writing that hardware stereo driver for linux. In fact, if you wantmH >it bad enough for VMS, maybe that is an option (OK I'm speaking like an$ >ex-particle physicist here   :-) ).  F VMS graphics are pretty much a lost cause.  There isn't even an OpenGLG driver for the Elsa card in our DS10 (which card, by the way, is almostaL identical to the Diamond Fire Gl 1000 Pro cards in the PCs.)  The "easiest" E path would probably be to chuck DECWINDOWS server completely and portuJ Xfree86.  That would open up the graphics card options to include any thatK have Linux drivers (which is many more than those that Compaq supports) andtI if/when the Linux OpenGL stereo drivers appear they would work on the VMS,F workstations too.   But such a port is well outside the boundaries of N anything that I'm likely to attempt.  Compaq might consider doing this though C - if DII/COE really works, maybe it won't be all that difficult to iI accomplish.  And then maybe for once cards will appear with drivers that eG will actually work on VMS without the VMS engineers having to write it.   I >So, Microsoft has screwed your upgrade path royally. You are consideringe. >deploying more Microsoft products, perchance?  J Perhaps.  The upgrade path for a PC is most often to chuck it in the trashH and replace it completely.  Unfortunately, while there were some really G nice and cheap hardware stereo cards 2 years ago they all some to have oM vaporized, and most of the cards that I know of now with that capability costnI at least $1k.  Even with the more expensive cards the PCs still cost lessvB than SGI workstations - and who knows how long SGI will even be inK business. I would have thought that the gamers would be into stereo viewinguI but only the ASUS card seems to offer it, and that only with the wired onr type of stereo glasses.    Regards,   David Mathog mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edug? Manager, sequence analysis facility, biology division, Caltech pJ **************************************************************************J *                                RIP VMS                                 *J **************************************************************************   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 17:37:56 -0500o/ From: Chris Scheers <chris@applied-synergy.com> 5 Subject: Re: Deleting 250,000+ files from a directory O Message-ID: <221804ADB83FF895.23C0F7B363F0487F.CCADB58EA5B07F82@lp.airnews.net>i   Jim Agnew wrote: > k > you can do a dir/size:all of the dir, sort it in reverse order, trim off the extraneous info in a editor,r > and turn it into a delete com file....  for a one-shot deal like this, that is probably the fastest solution you can comeup with...i > now, it won't run as fast as dfu, but the simplicity of it and the fact it can run in batch w/o your attention, gives it a tiny  > peice of merit..    1 Out of curiosity, why do you specify "/size:all"?o  E If the intent is to get the listing into a single column, you can useeH "/columns=1".  This eliminates the need to trim the size from the end of@ the line.  It also eliminates the time required to read the fileG attributes to get the size, which would be considerable for 250K files.t  G -----------------------------------------------------------------------o$ Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.  C Voice: 817-237-3360            Internet: chris@applied-synergy.com n   Fax: 817-237-3074a   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 22:21:57 -0500s7 From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys.nospam@earthlink.net>  Subject: Re: Duplex Printing- Message-ID: <39CAD055.74EFCF38@earthlink.net>h   John Macallister wrote:i > H > > Has anyone had success printing duplex to an HP8100 using the telnet
 > > symbiont?  > J > If the HP8100 has a duplex unit installed and duplex printing is enabledG >  on the printer you don't have to do anything special at the VMS end.l  C Yes, that's true. You can set the printer to do duplex by default. e  * I wonder how many folks choose to do that?   --   David J. DachteraY dba DJE Systemss http://www.djesys.com/  : Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page and Message Board: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/   F This *IS* an OpenVMS-related newsgroup. So, a certain bias in postings is to be expected.  @ Feel free to exercise your rights of free speech and expression.  F However, attacks against individual posters, or groups of posters, are strongly discouraged.    ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 23:21:34 GMT2 From: mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu (David Mathog)8 Subject: Re: FILESERV@WKU: Updated VNCviewer for OpenVMS, Message-ID: <8qe55u$1t2@gap.cco.caltech.edu>  _ In article <39c90042.3089702@swen.process.com>, goathunter@goatley.com (Hunter Goatley) writes:s >>$ >>	For (practically) all things VNC: >>; >>                      http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/r >>G >And then grab and install the VNC server for Windows (actually, it's ac> >package that includes the VNC viewer and server for Windows). >   J Well that's a fun little tool!  Nice job on the port, it worked as well asG the WNT one, and the -vms2pc switch is really nice.  The VMS VNC client G works a heck of a lot better than does the Java version inside NetscapesH 3.03.  Once the VNC server is installed on the windows box you can go inE with the viewer and take control of a remote PC. Or you can snoop theeK screen while talking to a user on the phone.  Very handy for talking a useri+ through a problem.  The price is nice too.    F But VNC does open up a huge security hole on the PC.  Does it at least( encrypt the password for the VNC login?   I I tried to use VNC to fire up a Microsoft Word 97 session on an NT 4 SP5 aI machine.  The application started but it jammed up after a few keystrokes-F and I had to kill the session.  That happened with the WNT client too 3 though, so it's nothing particular to the VMS port.a   David Mathog mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edum? Manager, sequence analysis facility, biology division, Caltech     ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:27:56 -0400I' From: "Bill Todd" <billtodd@foo.mv.com>u3 Subject: Re: Fixed length 17 byte record data & RMS ( Message-ID: <8qdjnh$rr3$1@pyrite.mv.net>  I <rocoto@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8qd8s4$ug7$1@nnrp1.deja.com...    ...a  J It has been many, many years since I worked on RMS, but until someone with6 more recent experience answers here are some comments:  C LRL is not the applicable file attribute to specify when creating acJ fixed-length-record file:  MRS is.  If you *already have* such a file, theK two values will be the same, but if not, setting LRL may well leave garbageVB in MRS (unless DCL does something intelligent when you specify LRL. incompatibly with MRS in a FIXED-format file).  G In any event, IIRC the actual space used for a record in a FIXED-formataK Sequential file on disk is always an even number of bytes, which means that H an odd MRS value will result in a usually-invisible (unless you dump the% contents) pad byte after each record.n  I > Does anyone have any suggestions on how to convince RMS that I _really_M/ > _really_ _really_ *want* an unaligned record?.  L If by unaligned you mean potentially starting on odd byte boundaries, use anH unformatted file and block I/O (or one of the stream formats, though the# delimiter-handling might be dicey).e   Hope that helps,   - bill   >h > -- > Davidp >c >a( > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:38:33 +0100a0 From: andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com>; Subject: Re: FW: Oracle Pricing ( was RE: Compaq VMS promo) * Message-ID: <39CA4799.BE440213@uk.sun.com>   Alan Greig wrote:i > . > On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 22:15:05 -0400, JF Mezei' > <jfmezei.spamnot@videotron.ca> wrote:, >  > >Dan Allen wrote:  > >>V > >>   And people bitch about VMS pricing!  Geez, Oracle has been one of the costliest% > >>   products I've ever dealt with!o > >  > >Reality check please: > > Q > >Does Oracle charge more for a VMS platform license than for an equivalent UNIX " > >or NT system platform licence ? > > O > >In other words, if you buy a 8086 server with equivalent CPU power to a DS10eM > >box, would Oracle charge more for the DS10 versus the 8086 based machine ?T > H > It;s supposed to be about the same for standard Oracle. The changes toE > the pricing strategy were intended to stop the cost escalating intoeC > the stratosphere as user count went up on high end systems. UntilmF > recently you could buy Oracle RDB in a minimum of 8 units for VMS atH > around $10k. If the change forces you to now buy an Enterprise licenseE > for RDB even on a low end development Alpha workstation (as postersnB > are suggesting) then this is ridiculous. However I would talk toE > Oracle directly if told this and refuse to accept this as an answerg, > until it came from the head of Oracle RDB. > > There was another reason, many e-commerce systems do not have @ connected or named users in the Oracle sense making counting the user population very difficult.    Regardst Andrew Harrisonn Enterprise IT Architects   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 23:48:41 -04004 From: "Robert Deininger" <rdeininger@mindspring.com>, Subject: Re: Help with Alpha Server 3000/800* Message-ID: <B5F04EDC-451B9@165.247.41.65>  
 Hi Howard,  A   Any luck with the DEC 3000/800?  Were you able to find anythingm; useful in any of the manuals?  I hope you can get it going.   J    I'm still waiting for my DEC 3000 to arrive.  All I have so far is a CD
 drive. :-(   ---------------------------- Robert Deininger rdeininger@mindspring.com0   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 20:52:27 GMTn- From: "Richard D. Piccard" <piccard@ohio.edu>  Subject: Re: Home Built Machine0( Message-ID: <39CA750A.17C993B4@ohio.edu>  N Curiosity overwhelms me.  What price would you charge for quantity one, if youK were going to sell a few of those (i.e., not presuming you would set up anycM sort of assembly line)?  With or without operating system (presumably part ofi" your market would be hobby types)?  #                                 RDP<     Islandco wrote:0  H > Just for the fun of it, we ordered some Axxion Boxes and have some NEW3 > cheap PX164LX motheboards with 533Mhz 21164 cpu's> >|/ > I built it myself in about 1 hour + load timer >  > Configured it as follows:i >bH > AXXION DL-17 Chassis (no soldering etc required - also has correct ATX > cutout and 400W p/s)I > PC164LX 533Mhz with 2mb on board cache - had to load SRM (LX164SRM.ROM)  > 2 x 128Mb PC100 DIMM > Qlogic QLA10402 > NCR53C810 PCI card SCSI-2 narrow for Tape and CD > ELSA Gloria Synergy PCI 8mbn > 4Gb UW SCSI Seagate ST34371W > DE500-BA Ethernet DEC 10/100 > RRD46-AB 12x SCSI DEC CD-ROM > Regular Floppy 1.4mb >i, > I put an active terminator on the Wide Bus0 > Terminated the SCSI CD-ROM with Parity Enabled >4L > Put the CD into DKA400 ( I don't know why it wanted to call it DKA instead	 > of DKB)r > And chocks away  >e > Worked first timee >(B > Loaded ELSA drivers as described in www.islandco.com/support.htm >lD > Then the DECwindows Logon prompt came on just like any other Alpha > $ > Tested it for a wee while - Good ! >o > David  >a! > Island Computers US CorporationS > 2700 Gregory Streeto > Suite 150G > Savannah GA 31404l > Tel: 912 447 6622a > Fax: 912 201 0096o > sales@islandco.com > www.islandco.com >eE > This message and any files transmitted with it are confidential andgL > may be privileged and/or subject to the provisions of privacy legislation.J > They are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whomG > they are addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intendedu > recipient,I > please notify Island Computers US Corp immediately and then delete this 
 > message.K > You are notified that reliance on, disclosure of, distribution or copyingo  > of this message is prohibited. >m > ----- Original Message -----> > From: Dale Lobb <lordgeep@nospam.inetnebr.nospam.com.nospam> > Newsgroups: comp.os.vmsn, > Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2000 1:02 AM  > Subject: Home Built Machine??? >r > > Hi All!!J > > Has anyone attempted to build thier own Alpha OpenVMS machine from theG > UP1500 or UP2000 motherboards available from Alpha Processor?  I justhJ > finished reading a bunch of the tech notes on thier site, and while theyK > don't specifically say that OpenVMS is supported by the newer boards, all I > the boards run the SRM console, and the console firmware revisions look N > similar to ones I seem to recall from recent firmware upgrades on my ES40 atL > work.  I realize that it is completly unsupported, but does anyone want to> > hazard an informed guess as to the possibilities of success? > >   > > Thanks for the insights..... > >h > > Dale > >oK > > P.S. for personal e-mail, remove all "nospam"s from the return address.p > >o > >s > >b > >t >n > --! > Island Computers US Corporationi > 2700 Gregory Street  > Suite 150i > Savannah GA 31404n > Tel: 912 447 6622g > Fax: 912 201 0096o > sales@islandco.com > www.islandco.com >sE > This message and any files transmitted with it are confidential anddL > may be privileged and/or subject to the provisions of privacy legislation.J > They are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whomG > they are addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended  > recipient,I > please notify Island Computers US Corp immediately and then delete thiso
 > message.K > You are notified that reliance on, disclosure of, distribution or copyinga  > of this message is prohibited.   --B ==================================================================B Dick Piccard                           Academic Technology ManagerB piccard@ohio.edu                                 Computer ServicesB http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~piccard/                Ohio University   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:58:24 -0400l* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> Subject: Re: Home Built Machinef- Message-ID: <39CA5A50.F5FD0191@tsoft-inc.com>    Islandco wrote:, > H > Just for the fun of it, we ordered some Axxion Boxes and have some NEW3 > cheap PX164LX motheboards with 533Mhz 21164 cpu'ss > / > I built it myself in about 1 hour + load timeh >  > Configured it as follows:w > H > AXXION DL-17 Chassis (no soldering etc required - also has correct ATX > cutout and 400W p/s)I > PC164LX 533Mhz with 2mb on board cache - had to load SRM (LX164SRM.ROM)l > 2 x 128Mb PC100 DIMM > Qlogic QLA10402 > NCR53C810 PCI card SCSI-2 narrow for Tape and CD > ELSA Gloria Synergy PCI 8mbt > 4Gb UW SCSI Seagate ST34371W > DE500-BA Ethernet DEC 10/100 > RRD46-AB 12x SCSI DEC CD-ROM > Regular Floppy 1.4mb  P I'm not looking.  Just curious what a minimal VMS system (hardware) could cost. N What would you sell this configuration for, not your cost, but selling price. 9 Also, price when configured as a server, ie; no graphics.r   Dave   -- w4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 22:39:05 GMTh2 From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> Subject: Re: MULTIA + OpenVMSp6 Message-ID: <d6wy5.624$F93.227178@typhoon.aracnet.com>  3 Hoff Hoffman <hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam> wrote: m > In article <GQey5.560$F93.211177@typhoon.aracnet.com>, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> writes:uO > :Personally I'd recommend the Turbo Channel DEC3000/300LX before a Multia for  > :running OpenVMS...n  I >   I'd recommend a PCI-based box before a TURBOchannel-based box, as it i) >   is rather easier to find PCI widgets.-  H Agreed, but if someone is trying to cut costs to the extent that they're8 looking at running a Hobbyist OpenVMS using a Multia....   			Zanea   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:08:15 -04000* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> Subject: Re: MULTIA + OpenVMS - Message-ID: <39CA5C9F.F25466FD@tsoft-inc.com>I   Hoff Hoffman wrote:s > z > In article <OF70E5CA14.5E1A2715-ON83256961.000995AB@ep-bc.petrobras.com.br>, fabio_compaq@ep-bc.petrobras.com.br writes:  & > :but it costs only US$ 60,00 (???) ! > C >   There are other cheap/old/used Alpha systems that ARE supportedsB >   by OpenVMS, and that don't have the limits of the Multia.  TheB >   prices on the new bottom-end EV6 boxes such as the AlphaServer@ >   DS10 do tend to limit the prices for the used Alpha systems. > ' > :Compaq should relaunch this machine.e > J >   Forget that, the design and the internals of the box are just too old. > J >   DP264 and the UP2000 and a couple of other boards are good choices forE >   OpenVMS hobbyists -- the Multia is very old and slow and limited.o  M When the Multia was first offered, it wasn't all that cheap.  At that time it G was less than any other Alpha, well, lets just say that I think it was,tK absolutes can get you in trouble.  Can't remember details, but it was maybe K $3,500 or $4,500 or in that price range.  Maybe I'm wrong, and it was less.i  L If you look at a DS10L, it's not too different than the Multia.  Physically,O it's shaped different, but conceptually, it's a minimum sized box with just themB essentials.  So, maybe the multia concept is alive and well today.  * Now if they could just sell them for $999.   Dave   -- c4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 23:34:04 GMT2 From: hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam (Hoff Hoffman) Subject: Re: MULTIA + OpenVMSt6 Message-ID: <8qe5tc$op3$1@mailint03.im.hou.compaq.com>  k In article <d6wy5.624$F93.227178@typhoon.aracnet.com>, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> writes: 4 :Hoff Hoffman <hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam> wrote:n :> In article <GQey5.560$F93.211177@typhoon.aracnet.com>, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> writes:P :> :Personally I'd recommend the Turbo Channel DEC3000/300LX before a Multia for :> :running OpenVMS... :*J :>   I'd recommend a PCI-based box before a TURBOchannel-based box, as it * :>   is rather easier to find PCI widgets. :0I :Agreed, but if someone is trying to cut costs to the extent that they're:9 :looking at running a Hobbyist OpenVMS using a Multia....   J   I'd not expect a whole lot of difference between a low-end TURBOchannel J   box and a low-end PCI box in the grand scheme of used-equipment pricing.?   And yes, you can probably find Multia boxes for even cheaper.n  L   Dealing with some of the idiosyncracies of a Multia may well be more than J   most folks are interested in (or, depending on the individual) have the G   knowledge needed, and finding TURBOchannel widgets can be rather moreiI   difficult -- there have been a wide variety of PCI widgets supported bys7   OpenVMS over the years, and most are still supported.n  F   Various of the AlphaStation boxes also get you the firmware failsafeG   loader -- something that is not available across the complete productiI   line, and a feature can be quite useful when the firmware gets trashed.n  F   For these reasons -- and particularly for a new or an inexperienced J   hobbyist looking for a relatively cheap and functional box -- a low-end :   PCI-based AlphaStation would be my usual recommendation.  N  --------------------------- pure personal opinion ---------------------------L    Hoff (Stephen) Hoffman   OpenVMS Engineering   hoffman#xdelta.zko.dec.com   ------------------------------  % Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 00:34:22 -0400h2 From: rdeininger@mindspring.com (Robert Deininger) Subject: Re: MULTIA + OpenVMSHL Message-ID: <rdeininger-2209000034220001@user-2iveaa1.dialup.mindspring.com>  [ In article <8qe5tc$op3$1@mailint03.im.hou.compaq.com>, hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam wrote:a  m > In article <d6wy5.624$F93.227178@typhoon.aracnet.com>, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> writes:o6 > :Hoff Hoffman <hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam> wrote:p > :> In article <GQey5.560$F93.211177@typhoon.aracnet.com>, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> writes:O > :> :Personally I'd recommend the Turbo Channel DEC3000/300LX before a Multia i > L >   I'd not expect a whole lot of difference between a low-end TURBOchannel L >   box and a low-end PCI box in the grand scheme of used-equipment pricing.A >   And yes, you can probably find Multia boxes for even cheaper.-  C Interestingly, the turbochannel boxes seem, on average, quite a bitdI cheaper than the PCI boxes of the same horsepower.  I think the obscurity H helps lower the price.  And there seems to be no shortage of inexpensiveI graphics, SCSI, ethernet, and even FDDI turbochannel options.  Higher-end O graphics boards aren't too common, but I think VMS doesn't support them anyway.e  K There's a note in the 7.0 release notes that "PXG" graphics isn't supported E any more.  The lack of precision in device names is frustrating.  ArerM the "PXG+" boards I see in some manuals also bye-bye along with the PXG ones?e  K (And I can't help but wonder why it was necessary to turn off existing codec that handled these cards.)  M Anyway, the various ZLX boards cover a pretty wide range of capabilities, andiU I guess they are still supported.  Not that hobbyists are looking for actual support.o  N If one's budget only allows a 21064-era system, either the PCI or turbochannel boxes can do pretty well for a hobbyist.  They aren't XP1000s, but they aren't chopped liver either.  By now they are pretty well broken-in and can keep hW running for a long time, attending the funerals of many young and foolish wintel boxes.o  P I've gotten the impression that DEC sold a LOT of 3000-xxx turbochannel systems,* and they are starting to retire in droves.  1 I might as well toss this URL out while I'm here:'  B http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~prescott/linux/alpha/dec3000-sysinfo.html  G This describes the entire turbochannel (alpha) line, with the exceptionlI of the mythical model 700X and 900X, which are in the VMS SPD but nowhere  else AFAIK.     H >   Various of the AlphaStation boxes also get you the firmware failsafeI >   loader -- something that is not available across the complete product>K >   line, and a feature can be quite useful when the firmware gets trashed.   M Hmm.  What is this "failsafe loader" thingy?  It lets you reload the firmwareiK if there isn't any already?  And how does one fix dead firmware without theu' failsafe loader?  Call the service guy?g   -- r Robert Deininger rdeininger@mindspring.coma   ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 21:06:30 GMT& From: Cthulhu <cthulhu@kadath.deep.it>. Subject: Re: No more SYSDUMP.DMP? No more NTP?( Message-ID: <8qdt8m$rm$1@kadath.deep.it>  + Peter LANGSTOEGER <eplan@kapsch.net> wrote:,  ( >>And SYS$SPECIFIC:[TCPIP$NTP] is there. > What's in it ?  < LOGIN.COM, TCPIP$NTP.CONF, two .LOG files, the sample .CONF.  7 >>Maybe that try to contact 127.0.0.1 is too premature? * > Don't think so. NTP is started this way.  D Even now that a Kind Soul posted me TPCIP 5.0A, it is doing the same thing.F And OSU-HTTPD is almost doing the same: at the first launch it doesn't- start, generating a PTHREAD*.LOG in WWW_ROOT.hC I discovered that a little PERL program launched just before HTTPD,wF that simply open and then close a socket somewhere, solve this problem: at boot... maybe it is a timeout problem on a slow system?  B Could be de DECnet (Phase IV) subsystem launched as a batch job be implied in some way?  ( > $ ty SYS$SPECIFIC:[TCPIP$NTP]login.comH > $! login.com for DIGITAL TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Auxiliary service   It's there.a  J > Which user ? NTP runs under the user TCPIP$NTP and the home directory ofI > this user is the SYS$SPECIFIC:[TCPIP$NTP]. So, what user did you mean ?   D No one, I was just asking if that LOGIN.COM for in the NTP directory: has the same functionality of a normal user's LOGIN.COM...   	comparatingly,  	    Cthulhu   -- @  G        Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu http://www.rlyeh.it wgah'nagl fhtgan!6# 		        <cthulhu at rlyeh dot it>o   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 16:55:51 -0500b' From: John Stott <jpstott@src.wisc.edu>. Subject: Re: NTP with UCX 4.2t8 Message-ID: <ls0lss0l0dla89i2d53mm7fgbr7bmon1u8@4ax.com>  : "Antony Wardle" <antony.wardle@nnnoospam.met.co.nz> wrote:  B >You need 5.0a if you have any linux boxes that telnet to your vms> >hosts. We found that each telnet session would use 30% of theG >cpu, therefore 3 telnets, would have your whole cpu all to themselves.u  6 I don't see this with UCX 4.2 on VMS 6.2 Vax or Alpha. BTW, NTP works fine too.   -- o5 John P. Stott                    jpstott@src.wisc.eduh8 Synchrotron Radiation Center     http://www.src.wisc.edu4 University of Wisconsin-Madison  http://www.wisc.edu   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:16:25 -0400a* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com>* Subject: Re: OpenVMS Prior Version Support- Message-ID: <39CA5E89.B24D154D@tsoft-inc.com>i   Sue Skonetski wrote: >  > Dear Newsgroup,  > I > I thought you might find this information useful.  I have approval fromt > services to post this. >  > Sue Skonetskis4 > __________________________________________________ > * > Prior Version Support (PVS) Announcement# > Release date:  September 20, 2000o > 0 > RE:  Prior Version Support for V5.5-2 and V6.2 > H > We are pleased to announce that Compaq will be extending Prior VersionN > Support, Sustaining Engineering (PVS-SE) coverage for OpenVMS VAX V5.5-2 andK > OpenVMS VAX and Alpha V6.2.  When it becomes necessary to end PVS for the1L > 5.5-2 and 6.2 versions, 24 months notification will be given to customers.L > This notification will be provided via the Compaq Software Legacy Web Site' > that is located at the following URLsh= > http://www.compaq.com/services/software/ss_pvs_se_amap.htmln= > http://www.compaq.com/services/software/ss_mps_pvs_eur.html  > N > Prior Version Support Sustaining Engineering provides full remedial support,J > including phone or e-mail access to technical experts; on-line access toH > tools and technical information, tested software patches; and criticalL > on-site support problem escalation to the Compaq product engineering group > as necessary.n > M > In response to your requests, with regard to OVMS versions other than 5.5-2iJ > and 6.2, (which were addressed above), we would like to clarify that theL > OpenVMS Prior Version Support Sustaining Engineering Policy is as follows: > N > Compaq will provide Prior Version Support Sustaining Engineering on the lastF > maintenance release associated with any given version of OpenVMS forI > eighteen (18) months.  After that time, only Prior Version Support Best K > Endeavor  will be available.   Best Endeavor Support is contingent on thedL > availability of local expertise and does not include problem escalation to > Compaq product engineering.  > 
 > OpenVMS VAXh! > Version Begin PVS-SE End PVS-SEe- > V5.5-2 01 Oct 1996 With 24 mos notification + > V6.2 01 Apr 1998 With 24 mos notificatione > V7.1 01 Jul 2000 31 Dec 20019 > V7.2 12 mos after V7.3 ship 18 mos after entry into PVSv >  > OpenVMS Alpham! > Version Begin PVS-SE End PVS-SEr+ > V6.2 01 Apr 1998 With 24 mos notificationt > V7.1 N/A N/A  > V7.1-2 01 Jul 2000 31 Dec 2001 > V7.2 N/A N/A; > V7.2-1 12 mos after V7.3 ship 18 mos after entry into PVSn  H Outstanding!  For VAX 5.5-2 and 6.2, and Alpha 6.2 we've just been givenN Sustaining Engineering on an indefinite basis, and if whenever ever does come,P another 24 months on top of that.  I'd be really astounded to see anything closeI from any other vendor, well, with the exception of IBM.  They do know the:M meaning of 'customer support', and it appears the Compaq VMS also understandsM this.    Dave, gone fishing for Andrew.   -- 04 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:53:30 +0100 2 From: Philip Kunzler <philip@mail.rockefeller.edu>% Subject: Re: OpenVMS(tm) RENNAISSANCEh< Message-ID: <200009220147.e8M1lW818623@mail.rockefeller.edu>  % Spam i enjoy receiving...as requestedu   >NEWSKEEPER 7 >published by Executive Software for the System Managerd3 >--------------------------------------------------g >Special E-mail Editionm >  >AN OpenVMS(tm) RENNAISSANCE >oJ >Numerous times throughout the last 9 years, pundits and industry analystsJ >have predicted the end of OpenVMS.  But now, to the astonishment of some,M >OpenVMS is having a resurgence.  How has this come to pass, and is it likely 
 >to continue?g >fG >In January1998, Compaq Computer Corporation announced its intention tosG >purchase  Digital Equipment Corporation, and the future of OpenVMS wastI >suddenly very uncertain.  OpenVMS had been in a decline since 1992, when"K >Digital changed its marketing strategy and put OpenVMS a distant second iniE >priority to what was then called Digital UNIX.  Compaq's purchase ofbL >Digital, for some, heralded a death-knell for OpenVMS.  Why would a companyH >with their own line of high-end servers (Tandem), and an obviously firmM >growth strategy for Windows NT servers, heavily invest in OpenVMS, which wasyI >already "on its way out"?  Many "knew" what was going to happen:  Compaq K >would support OpenVMS for its installed base for some time, and slowly butnK >surely woo OpenVMS customers over to Windows NT until the OpenVMS base wasr
 >finally dry.v >e$ >Happily, this has not come to pass. >nF >Shortly after the Compaq/Digital merger had been finalized, it becameF >evident that Compaq intended to roll forward with the development andK >releases that Digital already had in the works.  First, in July 1998, cametK >the release of the 21264 processor, the fastest ever at the time, bringing/E >new speed to OpenVMS machines.  Then in October Compaq announced thesH >technology that had been in development at Digital for years -- Galaxy.H >This brought sighs of relief from the OpenVMS camp, as many wondered ifL >Galaxy, near-ready for release when the merger occurred, would ever see theF >light of day.  OpenVMS 7.2, containing the Galaxy architecture, began >shipping in January 1999. >tK >Fast-forward to October 1999, when Compaq began demonstrating the upcomingsI >GS AlphaServers -- the hardware end of the Galaxy architecture.  At thistK >point, we began to think that maybe Compaq was serious about OpenVMS.  AndeI >they were -- in May 2000, the first GS series computers were shipping.  . >aI >As of August 2000, three out of the four first promised GS models -- the F >GS60, GS80, and GS160, have shipped, and the GS320 is not far behind.K >Compaq is offering an ever-widening range of products for OpenVMS, and hasCF >even established a new, slick quarterly OpenVMS newsletter.  Compaq'sG >installed base has NOT declined, as predicted by some, but has in factvK >expanded, as has Compaq's OpenVMS revenue.  Major new computer sites, suchyG >as E*TRADE and the new International Stock Exchange (ISE), have chosennK >OpenVMS as their platforms of choice over and above the alternatives.  And L >now, many of the analysts that earlier predicted the demise of OpenVMS have. >turned about and are now predicting growth!   >eI >So those of us who have hung in there can pat ourselves on the back, andeH >take comfort in the fact that OpenVMS will be around for a long time to   >come.E >For the latest on OpenVMS, including the new OpenVMS newsletter, the24 >"OpenVMS Times", visit Compaq's OpenVMS Web site at >http://www.openvms.digital.comR >F2 >Diskeeper(r) defragmentation software and OpenVMS >-D >While OpenVMS has grown and expanded, so has the need for DiskeeperC >defragmentation software.  With faster systems and enormous disks,cK >fragmentation is more prolific than ever. The answer?  Same as it's always M >been - Diskeeper.  Keeping up with modern technology, Diskeeper still brings M >the features that made it famous.  It defragments online, in the background,fM >while users are accessing files.  Its proprietary defragmentation technologymG >is still the most thorough and efficient around, keeping your files aslJ >contiguous as possible.  And it's still the easy-to-use product it always( >was - just "Set It and Forget It"(r).   >oL >Order Diskeeper for ALL your OpenVMS systems today!  Site License discounts1 >are available to help you.  Call 1-800-829-4357.t >  >hK >Copyright (c) 2000 Executive Software International.  All Rights Reserved.yI >Executive Software, Diskeeper, and "Set It and Forget It" are trademarksIH >owned by Executive Software International, Inc.  OpenVMS is a trademarkL >owned by Compaq Computer Corporation.  All other trademarks are property of >their respective owners.r >    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:54:59 -0600n- From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>l7 Subject: Re: Oracle Pricing ( was RE: Compaq VMS promo)t; Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A76816B@DENXCH>e  J This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand< this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240E.34978A24r Content-Type: text/plain;i 	charset="iso-8859-1"   7 > Buying Rdb from their web site also seems impossible.B  > Has anyone found differently ?  F No, Larry, you're right, it *is* impossible to buy Rdb from the OracleJ web-site.  And finding an Oracle salesperson who can even *spell* R-d-b is. even more impossible, if that's possible!  ;-)  I The *only* saving grace about Oracle's *support* for Rdb is found amongstiG the product's technical support staff (largely transplanted from/duringeK product's the sale from DEC).  This group continues to churn out top-flightuJ support, answers, ideas and guidance as we use the product "on the cutting edge."   -- Lorin    ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240E.34978A24u Content-Type: text/html; 	charset="iso-8859-1"h+ Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printablec  1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">s <HTML> <HEAD>9 <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =  charset=3Diso-8859-1">@ <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
 5.5.2650.12">s= <TITLE>Re: Oracle Pricing ( was RE: Compaq VMS promo)</TITLE>6 </HEAD>  <BODY>  B <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Buying Rdb from their web site also seems = impossible.</FONT>= <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Has anyone found differently ?</FONT>A </P>  F <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>No, Larry, you're right, it *is* impossible to buy =G Rdb from the Oracle web-site.&nbsp; And finding an Oracle salesperson =C? who can even *spell* R-d-b is even more impossible, if that's =  possible!&nbsp; ;-)</FONT></P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>The *only* saving grace about Oracle's *support* for =E Rdb is found amongst the product's technical support staff (largely = I transplanted from/during product's the sale from DEC).&nbsp; This group =4H continues to churn out top-flight support, answers, ideas and guidance =A as we use the product &quot;on the cutting edge.&quot;</FONT></P>s  ! <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>-- Lorin</FONT>t </P>   </BODY>t </HTML>d) ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240E.34978A24--r   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:52:32 GMTa4 From: "Michael D. Ober" <mdo.@.wakeassoc.com.nospam>, Subject: Re: OT:  More MSFT on US Navy shipsF Message-ID: <QNsy5.11485$nk3.551555@newsread03.prod.itd.earthlink.net>  E MS is telling the truth.  MS has said over and over that Windows (any  version) is NOT a real-time OS.s --	 Mike Oberr  1 "Jon Fiedler" <jmf9@po.cwru.edu> wrote in message & news:39ca3f77.8352019@news.cwru.edu...7 > On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 01:47:07 GMT, "Larry D Bohan, Jr"i$ > <LBohan@dbc.spam_less..com> wrote: >n3 > >more dollars from US taxpayers, buying the best.e > >d> > >this just boggles the imagination, methinks.   Scary stuff. > >d >l# > Agreed.  Favorite pair of quotes:  >tC > >Lockheed Martin officials chose Microsoft in part because of themF > >company s "experience in computers, networks and systems,  Lockwood > >said. > > > > >"This is a new area for us,  said Keith Hodson, a MicrosoftG > >Government spokesman. "Windows-based products have not traditionallywD > >been associated with Defense Department-specific mission-critical > >applications. > >s > G > So which is it?  Does M$ have experience or not?  One of these people  > is not telling the truth.l >s > Jon  >n   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:49:01 -0600e- From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>i( Subject: OT:  More MSFT on US Navy ships; Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A76816A@DENXCH>i  J This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand< this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.  ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240D.61A358E6. Content-Type: text/plain;e 	charset="iso-8859-1"   6 > more dollars from US taxpayers, buying the best.      = > this just boggles the imagination, methinks.   Scary stuff.i  / > http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no27/dod/2868-1.html:  C > Using a particular operating system to run a score of operations,sA > rather than several legacy systems, will let the Navy train its D > sailors to use one OS, Lockwood said. In the Navy, "there s been a@ > consistent mindset to take costs out from the beginning,  when > designing ships.  F > It takes 1,000 sailors "just to get a ship moving,  Williamson said.B > Microsoft software could let the ship s crew know when there s aF > pending failure in a ships engineering system, for example, he said.  K Could this be the "space shuttle disaster in-waiting" alluded to in another=I thread?  Is the real reason behind the Navy's adoption of MS based on the H fact that the *only* technology that the kids they're inducting actuallyI know is Windows?  Scary stuff indeed...  You get what you pay for (unlessc you're a taxpayer!).  
   -- Lorin    ' ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240D.61A358E6h Content-Type: text/html; 	charset="iso-8859-1"b+ Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableu  1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">c <HTML> <HEAD>9 <META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =x charset=3Diso-8859-1">@ <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
 5.5.2650.12">l. <TITLE>OT:  More MSFT on US Navy ships</TITLE> </HEAD>l <BODY>  C <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; more dollars from US taxpayers, buying the =t best.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </FONT>C </P>  ; <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; this just boggles the imagination, =l) methinks.&nbsp;&nbsp; Scary stuff.</FONT>  </P>   <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; <A =r8 HREF=3D"http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no27/dod/2868-1.html" =I TARGET=3D"_blank">http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no27/dod/2868-1.html</A></FON=  T> </P>  E <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Using a particular operating system to run a =? score of operations,</FONT>dF <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; rather than several legacy systems, will let = the Navy train its</FONT>hF <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; sailors to use one OS, Lockwood said. In the =! Navy, &quot;there s been a</FONT>tG <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; consistent mindset to take costs out from the =t beginning,&nbsp; when</FONT>/ <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; designing ships.</FONT>e </P>  H <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; It takes 1,000 sailors &quot;just to get a ship =% moving,&nbsp; Williamson said.</FONT>_F <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; Microsoft software could let the ship s crew = know when there s a</FONT>H <BR><FONT SIZE=3D2>&gt; pending failure in a ships engineering system, = for example, he said.</FONT> </P>  B <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>Could this be the &quot;space shuttle disaster =I in-waiting&quot; alluded to in another thread?&nbsp; Is the real reason =nD behind the Navy's adoption of MS based on the fact that the *only* == technology that the kids they're inducting actually know is =dE Windows?&nbsp; Scary stuff indeed...&nbsp; You get what you pay for =,' (unless you're a taxpayer!).</FONT></P>a  ( <P><FONT SIZE=3D2>&nbsp; -- Lorin</FONT> </P>   </BODY>  </HTML>f) ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0240D.61A358E6--.   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 16:59:45 +0100u  From: steven.reece@quintiles.com+ Subject: Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy shipsoH Message-ID: <OF5F2FE650.6488DF50-ON80256961.00579B26@qedi.quintiles.com>  G As a passing thought, and to give Andrew a break for five minutes......t  I I wonder what publicity will be given to the first navy ship or submarine I that gets lost at sea with or without all hands because of a failure of ayF certain operating system?  It could put the publicity around the E-Bay) failures in the shade several times over.r  H Then again, maybe some folks wouldn't like to see such publicity becauseF the U.S. Government could really wipe the floor with them then........   Right.  Back to normal service.    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 11:31:03 -0700c! From: Shane.F.Smith@Healthnet.como+ Subject: Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships-C Message-ID: <OF2E54E3F0.FBF85CFA-ON88256961.00658F84@HEALTHNET.COM>r  K Won't happen. Didn't happen with that prototype smart ship when it was dead-K in the water for three days. You KNOW that whatever goes wrong, MSNBC won'twI report it. (The thought of a Microsoft owned news service still breaks mep out in a cold sweat.)s   Shanet          4 steven.reece@QUINTILES.COM on 09/21/2000 08:59:45 AM   To:   Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Come cc:   , Subject:  Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships        G As a passing thought, and to give Andrew a break for five minutes......a  I I wonder what publicity will be given to the first navy ship or submarine,I that gets lost at sea with or without all hands because of a failure of anF certain operating system?  It could put the publicity around the E-Bay) failures in the shade several times over.a  H Then again, maybe some folks wouldn't like to see such publicity becauseF the U.S. Government could really wipe the floor with them then........   Right.  Back to normal service.c   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:32:21 -0400/# From: Jim Agnew <agnew@hsc.vcu.edu>s+ Subject: Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy shipsu+ Message-ID: <39CA6245.9D465B60@hsc.vcu.edu>m   and, Shane, I've thought about that dammed channel every time i flip past it to either the weather channel or toon disney...  ;-)t   scary...  " Shane.F.Smith@Healthnet.com wrote: > M > Won't happen. Didn't happen with that prototype smart ship when it was deadrM > in the water for three days. You KNOW that whatever goes wrong, MSNBC won'twK > report it. (The thought of a Microsoft owned news service still breaks meE > out in a cold sweat.)o >  > Shane  > 6 > steven.reece@QUINTILES.COM on 09/21/2000 08:59:45 AM >  > To:   Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Come > cc:o > . > Subject:  Re: OT: More MSFT on US Navy ships > I > As a passing thought, and to give Andrew a break for five minutes......r > K > I wonder what publicity will be given to the first navy ship or submarineyK > that gets lost at sea with or without all hands because of a failure of auH > certain operating system?  It could put the publicity around the E-Bay+ > failures in the shade several times over.  > J > Then again, maybe some folks wouldn't like to see such publicity becauseH > the U.S. Government could really wipe the floor with them then........ > ! > Right.  Back to normal service.S   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 22:47:11 +010001 From: "Roger Woodward" <rogerw@autogrouper.co.uk> 8 Subject: Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - update* Message-ID: <jivy5.9152$Cl1.224531@stones>  ) Thanks to everyone who has offered ideas.g  I Sorry for the delay in doing/saying something about my "poorly" Microvax,nL but ive finally got some time to dig, and hopefully work out how to solve my
 problem...  K The machine is a MicroVAX 3100 (I believe a Model 90, though it doesn't sayaK that anywhere on or in the box) made in August 1990 in Hong Kong (Ive takenf; the lid off for the first time, it was a bit dusty inside)!2L It was bought from DEC in about 1994, one of their ex demo machines, and itsH worked with (pretty much) no trouble since then. A few months ago it didI what its doing now, i.e. randomly spout heiroglyphics accross the screen, 0 but after switching it off and on all seemed ok.. Now my problem has come back with a vengance..  I As I say it is a MV3100 (probably model 90 - the model number on the backf says DV-31BT2-A)K Inside is an RZ23-E and RZ25-E, on the SCSI port is an external TLZ04 whicho Ive unplugged for the moment. K I have a Wyse terminal (WY370) plugged into MMJ1 (OPA0: I think), the cablemC between has a MMJ to 25pin converter, 5 pins of which are wired up.e2 One of the machines previous owners has scribbled: OPA0 next to MMJ1,& TT1 next to MMJ2, TT3 next to MMJ3 and& TT2 next to the DB25 Serial connector.  L I have checked the setup on the terminal (which as I say has worked fine for the last 5 or so years)rA and its 9600 baud, RCV=XMIT,Data 8/1/none,Handshake Xon/Xoff. AndCG unfortunately I dont have another (working) monitor to swap it for  bute& suspect I could try my PC (see below).  & Now the problem, just to recap: I saidE > :Then further display is in hyroglyphics (u umlauts, backwards ?, Al umlautsa > :etc) and nothing resonds.J The hyroglyphics now start in the middle of the self test (Ive just turnedH it on again, it started waffling after ...C...B) so I am rather thinking) that something internally is going wrong.,I At the moment the LEDs on the back stop with 7, 2 and 1 on, the rest off.n  L In my look through the FAQ I seem to recall there being a difference betweenE a VAXStation and a MicroVAX in terms of booting the machine without ar% console i.e you cant do it with a MV.a   Stephen Hoffman then saidiI >   That would look like you have the wrong speed set on a terminal, or arG >   terminal that is simply too slow to respond (smooth scroll, or justwD >   plan slow), or (often) a terminal with a slaved printer enabled. >oF >   Which port are you plugged into?  (See the FAQ for some details on1 >   various console port configuration settings.)t
 I found...? >VAX10.  How can I set up an alternate console on a VAXstation?hB >Most VAXstation systems have a switch -- often labeled S3 -- that7 >enables one of the serial lines as the system console. L but I dont think it applies here, I cant see anything labelled S3 and anyway
 its not a VS.a   Tying the other ports... MMJ2 (TTY1) gives nothing.% MMJ3 (TTY3) gives a few hyroglyphics.sI Can I use TTY2 in any way, perhaps back it onto my PC serial port and useGG Hyperterminal? Ive seen this described as an Asynchronous Modem Control K Port, which doesnt sound promising. I havnt got a MMJ (or 25 pin male) to 9 B pin female converter or a 25 pin female cable (Ive got every other3 combination) but will try to find one or the other.   I For the moment that I am going to try and find the right serial converterhH and swap the WYSE terminal for my PC and try it out on OPA0 and TTY2, ifB that doesnt work then is the problem likely to lie with the serial& controller and is this at all fixable.   Thanks again for any ideas.s   Cheers Rogere   ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 22:08:31 GMT2 From: hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam (Hoff Hoffman)8 Subject: Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - update6 Message-ID: <8qe0sv$nmr$1@mailint03.im.hou.compaq.com>  ^ In article <jivy5.9152$Cl1.224531@stones>, "Roger Woodward" <rogerw@autogrouper.co.uk> writes:L :The machine is a MicroVAX 3100 (I believe a Model 90, though it doesn't sayD :that anywhere on or in the box) made in August 1990 in Hong Kong...  I   The "KA" number displayed when the system powers up (if you can see it,nH   given the current problem) can be used against the list in the FAQ, orI   the system model number can be translated.  That said, the list of the sK   "KA" numbers in the current FAQ is lacking a few of the VAX systems, and a9   the following is an update queued for the next edition:n  4         KA41-A for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 10 and 205         KA41-B for the VAXserver 3100 Model 10 and 20a6         KA41-D for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 10e and 20e7         KA41-E for the VAXserver 3100 Model 10e and 20e 6         KA42-A for the VAXstation 3100 Model 30 and 406         KA42-B for the VAXstation 3100 Model 38 and 48/         KA43-A for the VAXstation 3100 Model 76o2         KA45 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 30 and 40+         KA47 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 80l+         KA50 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 90s+         KA51 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 95s+         KA55 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 85i+         KA56 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 96y+         KA58 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 88t+         KA59 for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 98A  H   If your system displays KA50, well, you have a MicroVAX 3100 model 90.  K :The hyroglyphics now start in the middle of the self test (Ive just turned I :it on again, it started waffling after ...C...B) so I am rather thinkings* :that something internally is going wrong.  I   This could easily be a fault with terminal or it might just be a fault 0G   with the MicroVAX system.  Hard to say.  I'd swap the terminal first,r9   since that's easier to deal with, and cheaper to fix...A  M :In my look through the FAQ I seem to recall there being a difference betweenrF :a VAXStation and a MicroVAX in terms of booting the machine without a& :console i.e you cant do it with a MV.  M   Both VAXstation and MicroVAX systems expect a system console of some sort,  M   whether it be the serial line or graphics console on the VAXstation or the f&   serial line console on the MicroVAX.  N  --------------------------- pure personal opinion ---------------------------L    Hoff (Stephen) Hoffman   OpenVMS Engineering   hoffman#xdelta.zko.dec.com   ------------------------------  + Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 22:44:29 +0000 (   )n3 From: Christopher Smith <chriss@Mufasa.pubserv.com>t8 Subject: Re: Please help a poorly Microvax 3100 - updateJ Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.05.10009212239170.28240-100000@Mufasa.pubserv.com>  * On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Roger Woodward wrote:  N > In my look through the FAQ I seem to recall there being a difference betweenG > a VAXStation and a MicroVAX in terms of booting the machine without aa' > console i.e you cant do it with a MV.D  H Really?  I thought that you could still do it... you might want to check again.  K > For the moment that I am going to try and find the right serial convertergJ > and swap the WYSE terminal for my PC and try it out on OPA0 and TTY2, ifD > that doesnt work then is the problem likely to lie with the serial( > controller and is this at all fixable.  B Don't be so quick to blame the VAX.  IIRC mmj cable isn't normallyH shielded at all.  Have you done any electrical work/moved the vax or theE terminal/plugged something new into the wall closeby?  (anything thatOB might cause interference?)  I know that I have one mmj cable on myJ VAXStation 2000 which decides to spout random characters into the terminal- when you get it too close to other computers.r  H Check all your cables/connectors/plugs/etc.  Make sure they're clean and solid.  I At that point, I'd try a different terminal, and then if you're sure it's 2 none of the above, it may be something in the VAX.   Regards,   Chris   O ===============================================================================r@ "My two cents"			(http://rootworks.com/twocentsworth.cgi?128562)= Christopher Smith(chriss@pubserv.com)			Prgramer^W Programmer, Prime Synergy of Champaign, IL. % -------------------------------------nI "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and4H weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes; and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949  O -------------------------------------------------------------------------------    ------------------------------  # Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 04:09:04 GMT10 From: gilley@nospam.bravewc.com (Charles Gilley)9 Subject: Replacing system disk, will licenses still work?,5 Message-ID: <AXAy5.457$g4.1517@skycache.prestige.net>i  O I want to cold-spare a system drive on a VAX4300.  I make a stand-alone backup tK tape of the existing system image and blast it onto a replacement disk.  I m5 would think that the licenses should still load, yes?   M Under what hardware circumstances would the licenses not load, replacement ofcM motherboard?  Network card?  From unix-land, many licenses like to tie to thew, physical network address.  Does VMS do this?  L Lastly, when my machine boots, I see a number of license manager complaints. Are these logged anywhere?   Thanks,p   chg    ------------------------------   Date: 21 Sep 2000 17:51:18 GMT2 From: hoffman@xdelta.zko.dec.nospam (Hoff Hoffman)6 Subject: Re: RSH Problem - Can someone try this for me6 Message-ID: <8qdhqm$l6i$1@mailint03.im.hou.compaq.com>  G In article <8qcqtq$d98$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, thefantom@my-deja.com writes: 9 :From a windows NT 4 Machine command prompt (dos)enter :-m9 :(REXEC works in the same way as RSH but with a password)x :r) :REXEC VaxNodeName -l username -n WAIT 10t  8   That requests a ten-minute wait on OpenVMS, obviously.  A   Please: What OpenVMS version?  What IP stack?  What IP version?,  H   I have tried and duplicated this with Windows 2000 to TCP/IP Services F   V5.0A on OpenVMS Alpha V7.2-1.  After some number of minutes, I too E   eventually get the "Recv failed: Connection reset by peer" message  /   displayed on the Windows 2000 command window.v  C   I would encourage the use of formal product support channels for iD   whichever IP stack is involved here -- if this is TCP/IP Services,D   get the Compaq Customer Support Center involved.  (This is clearlyB   an interesting (mis?)behaviour, but this initially appears to beA   more involved than I have cycles available -- I'm not sure whatsB   the correct behaviour here should be, too.  For all I know rightD   now, this connection reset is the expected and correct behaviour.)  N  --------------------------- pure personal opinion ---------------------------L    Hoff (Stephen) Hoffman   OpenVMS Engineering   hoffman#xdelta.zko.dec.com   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 17:40:03 GMTe+ From: Jordan Henderson <jordan@my-deja.com>-* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist) Message-ID: <8qdh5f$983$1@nnrp1.deja.com>"  * In article <39CA2C97.B9347227@uk.sun.com>,3   andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> wrote:1 > hg/jb wrote: > >e > > andrew harrison wrote:$ > > snipped stuff to save bandwidth: > > >:C > > > Of course you did not call the FUDsters lying idiots I wonderZ< > > > why, perhaps a trawl through deja would be interesting< > > > were you involved in the threads ? Remember anyone who; > > > suggested that the outage was caused by Sun SW/HW hasc> > > > in your terms been shown to be a lying idiot, your words, > > > not mine and not words I would choose. > > >A > > > Andrew Harrisonw > > > Enterprise IT Architect1 > > Andrew,N@ > > You have made me wish that Carl Lydick was back to deal withA > > you properly.  Carl is not here, I am not able to emulate him3= > > in the style he deserves, so I will have to do it my way.yA > > Andrew - I am aghast at you, the king of FUDster spin postingL@ > > those words.  You persist in your approach to spin the truth? > > into an orwellian morass yet you give us a prime example oftB > > why some mothers should eat their young AND reason to finalize > > retroactive abortion.O > > v/rD > > justbobe >,3 > So what do you think caused the 22 outage at eBay 1 > which was the basis of the origional attempt toi
 > FUD Sun.  4 I dunno... It must have been the original statements6 of pain and anger from eBay management that led people
 to blame Sun.s   >=0 > Come on, you are happy to accuse me of spin so/ > lets have what you think are the actual factsa > behind eBays outage. >l, > Remember the alegations made on this group  > included in no specific order: >o1 > Data corruption caused by unspecified Sun HW/SWy > E10K hardware failured > Unspecified solaris issues >w1 > At the time I refuted all of these claims, noneo0 > of which were true and you are now accusing me
 > of spin.  1 Please Andrew, tell us, when did you refute those - claims?  Be specific, tell us exactly what is51 behind all the eBay problms.  I only remember youh0 waving your hands at it, hinting darkly that Sun0 lawyers were after people who were spreading FUD1 and making some statements about how partners and6 customers had to be protected.  2 Oh, and I don't find credible some later statement3 by eBay management which was after Sun had a chancel3 to go in and get those NDAs signed (for promises ofg3 prompt attention to their problems) and promises ofa2 some too-good-to-pass-up giveaway deals on further
 Sun hardware.t   >u > So come on what was it ??????d >e	 > Regards  > Andrew Harrisonn > Enterprise IT Architect  >e   -- -Jordan Hendersonc jordan@greenapple.comn    & Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy..   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 20:19:57 +010020 From: andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com>* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist* Message-ID: <39CA5F5D.B8524F52@uk.sun.com>   Rob Young wrote: > _ > In article <39CA2C97.B9347227@uk.sun.com>, andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> writes:  >  > >t5 > > So what do you think caused the 22 outage at eBayS3 > > which was the basis of the origional attempt ton > > FUD Sun. > >l2 > > Come on, you are happy to accuse me of spin so1 > > lets have what you think are the actual facts9 > > behind eBays outage. > >i > A >         Who cares?  Old news.  More of interest is how how comesG >         they have bi-weekly failures of their primary server?  Before D >         you answer... remember they are quick to point out when itG >         is an ISP issue.  And we are clever enough to know they don'teF >         have a single network connection nor a single NT box nor anyH >         other single point of failure.  There is only one single pointG >         of failure and yes they are getting a bit snappier at cutting D >         over to the backup.  Down from 42 minutes to 33 minutes on >         ye old fire drill.  - So is this an admission that the FUD flung at:4 Sun over the 22 hour outage was in fact incorrect or3 to use Jordans description the posters making theseD2 statments were simply "lying idiots" his words not
 my choice.  4 This being the case arn't you simply trying to fling4 more FUD in the vain hope that something will stick.  4 Doesn't this sort of attitude restrict your ability 5 to take any sort of high moral line in this argument.w   Regards :):):):):):) Andrew Harrisone Enterprise IT Architecte   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 16:03:12 -0400/ From: jordan@lisa.gemair.com (Jordan Henderson)c* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist* Message-ID: <8qdpi0$rpf$1@lisa.gemair.com>  * In article <39CA5F5D.B8524F52@uk.sun.com>,2 andrew harrison  <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> wrote: >Rob Young wrote:o >>  ` >> In article <39CA2C97.B9347227@uk.sun.com>, andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> writes: >> f >> >6 >> > So what do you think caused the 22 outage at eBay4 >> > which was the basis of the origional attempt to
 >> > FUD Sun.t >> >3 >> > Come on, you are happy to accuse me of spin sos2 >> > lets have what you think are the actual facts >> > behind eBays outage.  >> > >>  B >>         Who cares?  Old news.  More of interest is how how comeH >>         they have bi-weekly failures of their primary server?  BeforeE >>         you answer... remember they are quick to point out when it H >>         is an ISP issue.  And we are clever enough to know they don'tG >>         have a single network connection nor a single NT box nor anyoI >>         other single point of failure.  There is only one single pointnH >>         of failure and yes they are getting a bit snappier at cuttingE >>         over to the backup.  Down from 42 minutes to 33 minutes on  >>         ye old fire drill.( >e. >So is this an admission that the FUD flung at5 >Sun over the 22 hour outage was in fact incorrect oro4 >to use Jordans description the posters making these3 >statments were simply "lying idiots" his words notu >my choice.f  1 I only applied the term "IdioT Architect" to you, 3 a play on your signature.  And, I called you a liar 1 for persistently lying when you identify a singlec. cause of the recurring system failures of Sun & hardware as being bad SRAM components.  4 I've demonstrated carefully how either you are lying4 or Exec VP Shoemaker is lying about these failures, 1 but you always seem to want to change the subject % when you are backed into this corner.h  1 I can go over other examples of where you've beene2 caught in lies in this public newsgroup if you're 5 interested in going over that old ground (SIMS havingo1 no Innosoft code, Environmental factors being thes. cause of the eCache failures, etc.).  But, you. always elide those comments from your response$ and instead focus on something else.  2 So, no, I don't think people spreading FUD are all "lying idiots".  Only you.   >y5 >This being the case arn't you simply trying to flingh5 >more FUD in the vain hope that something will stick.w >i  2 And, you're just changing the subject because you  have no answer..  5 >Doesn't this sort of attitude restrict your ability e6 >to take any sort of high moral line in this argument. >m >Regards :):):):):):)h >Andrew Harrison >Enterprise IT Architect   -Jordan Hendersonf jordan@greenapple.com    ------------------------------    Date: 21 Sep 2000 17:00:52 -0500* From: young_r@eisner.decus.org (Rob Young)* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist+ Message-ID: <nIiP3Lp5SO19@eisner.decus.org>o  ] In article <39CA5F5D.B8524F52@uk.sun.com>, andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> writes:  > Rob Young wrote: >> a` >> In article <39CA2C97.B9347227@uk.sun.com>, andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> writes: >> l >> >6 >> > So what do you think caused the 22 outage at eBay4 >> > which was the basis of the origional attempt to
 >> > FUD Sun.w >> >3 >> > Come on, you are happy to accuse me of spin soe2 >> > lets have what you think are the actual facts >> > behind eBays outage.a >> > >>  B >>         Who cares?  Old news.  More of interest is how how comeH >>         they have bi-weekly failures of their primary server?  BeforeE >>         you answer... remember they are quick to point out when it H >>         is an ISP issue.  And we are clever enough to know they don'tG >>         have a single network connection nor a single NT box nor anyeI >>         other single point of failure.  There is only one single pointsH >>         of failure and yes they are getting a bit snappier at cuttingE >>         over to the backup.  Down from 42 minutes to 33 minutes ono >>         ye old fire drill.d > / > So is this an admission that the FUD flung at 6 > Sun over the 22 hour outage was in fact incorrect or5 > to use Jordans description the posters making thesee4 > statments were simply "lying idiots" his words not > my choice. > 6 > This being the case arn't you simply trying to fling6 > more FUD in the vain hope that something will stick. > 6 > Doesn't this sort of attitude restrict your ability 7 > to take any sort of high moral line in this argument.  >  > Regards :):):):):):) > Andrew Harrison- > Enterprise IT Architect0  ; 	Don't get too giggly there.  Admission of nothing.  I saidu= 	"who cares" "old news".  Rightly so.  I'm more interested in-< 	more recent crashes.  The 22 hour outage everyone knows wasA 	caused by lack of patch.  Of course it took weeks for the finger.B 	pointing to subside.  And yes... I did buy into hardware problemsC 	as I admitted in another thread.  Cutting and pasting www.news.comg; 	stuff does have its downsides... BUT that is all we had att7 	the time.  Now do us a favor and eat ecache crow like r= 	Shoemaker and van Aman so we can focus on other Sun hardware  	problems, ok?  RAID , anyone?   				Robt   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:30:29 -0400w* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com>* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist- Message-ID: <39CA61D5.81CD0B14@tsoft-inc.com>    andrew harrison wrote: >  > hg/jb wrote: > >  > > andrew harrison wrote:$ > > snipped stuff to save bandwidth: > > > C > > > Of course you did not call the FUDsters lying idiots I wonderr< > > > why, perhaps a trawl through deja would be interesting< > > > were you involved in the threads ? Remember anyone who; > > > suggested that the outage was caused by Sun SW/HW has3> > > > in your terms been shown to be a lying idiot, your words, > > > not mine and not words I would choose. > > >r > > > Andrew Harrisonl > > > Enterprise IT Architecto > > Andrew,l@ > > You have made me wish that Carl Lydick was back to deal withA > > you properly.  Carl is not here, I am not able to emulate himM= > > in the style he deserves, so I will have to do it my way.cA > > Andrew - I am aghast at you, the king of FUDster spin postingf@ > > those words.  You persist in your approach to spin the truth? > > into an orwellian morass yet you give us a prime example ofnB > > why some mothers should eat their young AND reason to finalize > > retroactive abortion.t > > v/rh > > justbob  > 3 > So what do you think caused the 22 outage at eBayi1 > which was the basis of the origional attempt to.
 > FUD Sun. > 0 > Come on, you are happy to accuse me of spin so/ > lets have what you think are the actual factsi > behind eBays outage. > , > Remember the alegations made on this group  > included in no specific order: > 1 > Data corruption caused by unspecified Sun HW/SW  > E10K hardware failurel > Unspecified solaris issues > 1 > At the time I refuted all of these claims, nonec0 > of which were true and you are now accusing me
 > of spin. >  > So come on what was it ??????S > 	 > Regards  > Andrew Harrisonn > Enterprise IT Architectc  L Trying to put a bit of constraint on things.  Really people, there should beK some limits on 'Andrew kicking'.  After all, he's just doing his job, rightsI Andrew? :-)  None of the rest of us would like it if people started going2P further than a bit of subtle suggestion when beating us up about our job.  Let's4 try to avoid some of the rather explicit stuff, huh?   Dave   -- f4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------  # Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 03:08:01 GMT + From: Jordan Henderson <jordan@my-deja.com>u* Subject: Re: Sun Hardware problems persist) Message-ID: <8qeie5$hib$1@nnrp1.deja.com>e  * In article <39CA420C.A48350D8@uk.sun.com>,3   andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> wrote:l > Jordan Henderson wrote:a > >.- > > In article <39C8CFF9.56AA5CC@uk.sun.com>,a7 > >   andrew harrison <andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com> wrote:o > > > Jordan Henderson wrote:a > > > >f >nC > > > Nor do I think Compaq would for example be likely to dish theeC > > > dirt on a particular supplier where the supplier did not wanto" > > > the information made public. > > >o > >bD > > How very hypothetical of you.  Somehow, Sun partners and vendorsC > > must be protected from Sun dishing dirt, while in the situation @ > > with Intel that you find that comparable, Intel stood up and= > > publicly worked with their customers to fix the problems.= > >= >=	 > Rubbish=8 > Intel initially denied there was an issue and tried to; > rubbish the claims about FP errors. It was only when theym8 > were forced to concede in public that the FP issue did7 > exist that they started the processor recall process.t  7 The problem was worked in public, however.  It wasn't a36 situation where the vendor pointed at unnamed vendors.7 A convenient kind of scapegoat, one who takes no public 8 responsibility but absolves Sun from any responsibility.  3 I guess it's a standard ploy with Sun, all their HW-4 is manufactured from components made by others (even5 the processors!).  Sun will always be able to point aj4 finger in some direction about their lack of testing and engineering expertise.   >s: > There is no parallel to the Sun SRAM problem, we are not; > denying its an issue but we are also not the manufacturerx; > of the part in question and are therefore in a completelym > different position to Intel. >uB > > It's awfully convenient for Sun that they have these suppliersE > > that must be protected.  Sun can get away with blaming everythingn > > on the mystery supplier. > >t >h7 > So you are not familiar with the idea that a contracty: > between a component supplier and a computer manufacturer; > may preclude either vendor making public statements about 8 > the reliability etc of the components or the resulting
 > product. >o7 > I also find it hugely ammusing that you are defendingR; > Compaq and trying the FUD Sun with this kind of argument.$ >$9 > What a short memory you have, remember how difficult itn= > was for the DOJ to get Compaq to the stand to testify about ; > practices that Compaqs legal council must have known weret# > likely to be found to be illegal.d  < I don't remember that the DOJ had any problem getting Compaq< to testify.  I do recall that Compaq was concerned that they7 may be seen as being in collusion with Microsoft.  See:   1   http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/7/ns-7030.htmlt  ? Is that how these issues are comparable?  Is Sun afraid that ifm@ the truth were known about these failures that we would see that> Sun AND this mystery vendor are in collusion to hide problems?   > < > > > You seem like Rob to be intent in trying to prove that= > > > there is some sort of wicked Sun conspiracy. Ironically 8 > > > the first conspiracy theory of this type, the eBay: > > > one proved in fact to be a situation where Sun stood8 > > > much more to gain by not having an NDA because the: > > > public airing of the actual causes of eBays problems1 > > > would have shown that Sun was not to blame.  > >r= > > Oh?  You can _claim_ this, but in fact there has not beenb< > > "a public airing of the actual causes of eBays problems" > > that would vindicate Sun.  > >f? > Oh yes there has, eBay publically exhonerated Sun saying thatcA > there had not been a problem with Sun hardware or software. The:> > cause was in fact 3rd party product which crashed because it? > had not been patched, the patch had been available for nearlyn" > a year at the time of the crash.  ; Yes, I've heard the explanation... Now, enlighten us.  Whatu: _exactly_ was the patch that was not available for "over a9 year"?  When was it first made available and what problemf: did it address?  Most patches have a URL, where is the URL: for this one?  I think you'll find that these details have never been revealed.  < Who is protected by not revealing this information?  Indeed,7 other customers might be similarly exposed and might bee interested in this information.t  ; More convenient finger pointing.  It could all well just be  a cover story.  : >                                   Sun did not supply the4 > product in question to eBay nor did we support it. >i7 > This was aired at the time and subsequently in depth.  >l > > >3> > > > You dare to call me an idiot but again going back to theC > > > eBay 22 hour outage, all the conspiracy theories, speculation @ > > > about data corruption, hardware failures and all the other9 > > > FUD turned out to be total and utter rubbish eithere@ > > > knowingly (or lets hope) unknowingly being fed to this andA > > > other groups in a vain attempt damage Sun. The facts at theo? > > > time and the facts now available show that I was entirely A > > > accurate about the fact that the eBay outage was not causedt? > > > by a failure in any Sun supplied or supported software ora > > > hardware.  > >e? > > "The facts at the time and the facts now available show..."s > >o< > > Hmmm... Let's tackle "The facts at the time".  The first; > > thing we heard from eBay was that they very much blamedp > > Sun for recurring outages: > >oA > >   http://www.wirednews.com/news/business/0,1367,20190,00.htmlr >a7 > Says nothing about a Sun Hardware or software failure  > >e7 > >   http://www.forbes.com/forbes/99/0726/6402238a.htmu > >n; > Turns out to have been totally incorrect. The informationd; > supposedly coming from eBay blaming Solaris actually camet: > from an employee of one of Sun's competitors posting the9 > alegation to one of eBay's message boards. Incedentallye: > the vendor in question got a very high level slap in the > face from eBay.n > G > >   http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/BillHennessy/BillHennessy3.htmle > >rC > A very balanced (irony) article that also got it completely wrongg >n? > > Apparently, someone behind the scenes has something to say:  > > : > >   http://www.illuminata.com/analystnb/andeepthroat.htm > >l7 > Looks remarkably like the posting that was sent by an ' > employee of one of Sun's competitors.i >n: > > Then, there was a flurry of conflicting and convoluted> > > explanations from Sun.  Finally, everything went quiet (do> > > we here the pens scribbling signatures on NDAs in the hope% > > that Sun will fix the problems?).  > >w< > > Finally, we hear that Sun has "sold" many new servers to	 > > eBay:p= > >  http://www.canada.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1882022.html?  tag=st.ne.1003-a > > 203-1692555..ni7 > >k> > > But, what's this?  The details of the deal go undisclosed. > > # > > Sounds like a big payoff to me.h > >o? > > So, Andrew, where's your facts now that prove that the eBayt> > > failures had nothing to do with Sun HW/SW?  Oh, I remember@ > > now, the last time this was discussed here, you had to pointC > > to those suppliers and customers that needed to be "protected".r > >i@ > So what have you come up with, just half facts and unsupported< > allegations and even a good old conspiracy theory to spice= > it all up. Even you must be capable of enough self analysiss> > to realise that this is pure unmitigated FUD with no factual > basis. >e> > The eBay 22 hour outage was caused by a 3rd party SW product@ > crashing because of a bug for which a patch had been availableD > for a number of months. Both Sun and the SW vendor had recommendedA > that the patch was applied some time before the outage occured.  > < > It was not caused by Sun hardware or software and this was? > confirmed in a public statment made by eBay after the initialo9 > FUD had stopped flying and the real facts became clear.t >e< > > Face it, Sun and Veritas were crawling all over the eBay> > > systems.  They should have spotted any problems and warned? > > eBay of bad practices, if there were any.  Why didn't they?dA > > Well, the best explanation was that Sun didn't see it coming.i > >u: > Good lord how two faced can you get, you almost come out; > with the actual cause of the outage but then try to twistS  > it round to being Sun's fault. >l< > Sun did tell eBay to apply the patch. If you want to blame; > us for anything you can blame us for not being persistent 8 > enough, we did not keep going back and telling them to9 > make time and patch the 3rd party product. Sun made the 8 > mistake of thinking that eBay was like any other large< > technology led organisation, we did not realise that eBays7 > resources had not kept up with the growth in their ITw > infrastructure.o >h: > I very much doubt than any of our competitors would have: > done any better. In fact they did not as eTrade (Compaq) > and Schwab (IBM) illustrate. >>: > Of course the huge irony of your attempts to FUD Sun and9 > create some kind of conspiracy theory out of nothing is < > that Compaq have their own murky eBay-like failure lurking > in the wings.. >r@ > Remember eTrade, what happened there, was it a Compaq engineerB > doing the wrong thing and a bug in the OpenVMS cluster software,@ > who knows, neither Compaq or eTrade have been very forthcoming8 > about what really caused eTrade to have their outages.  : I heard that a Compaq engineer had improperly put a lot of< non cluster traffic on a Fiber Cluster Interconnect.  SoundsA reasonable.  Case closed.  And, we don't hear continued instanceseC of downtime amounting to many dozens of hours like we do with eBay.u   >aA > > I'm waiting for those people to be shown to be liars.  Sorry,r< > > I can't take your word for it, you're just not credible.9 > > Everytime I do catch you in a clear lie, anyone who'siA > > interested please trawl through deja, you change the subject.  > > = > So when they said that it was Sun hardware or software thatc= > caused the outage when in fact it was a bug in an unpatchedo9 > 3rd party product, they were not lying or being idiots.i  < It's called credibility.  Since you've never had any I don't expect you to recognize it.g  9 When Sun has been shown to have the unethical practice ofa: forcing customers, who are entitled to Platinum service to? sign gag-order NDAs before they get that service, we understandt; why a customer might initially express one opinion and then  change their tune later.   >e; > If so then I would hate to see what you actually considert > a lie to be. >e	 > Regardsa > Andrew Harrisong > Enterprise IT Architecth >    -- -Jordan Hendersona jordan@greenapple.coml    & Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.    ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:16:30 -0400y* From: David A Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> Subject: Re: VMS Memory Tuning- Message-ID: <39CA426E.2F50E161@tsoft-inc.com>t   Rob Young wrote: > ` > In article <20000921100524.26592.00000003@ng-ch1.aol.com>, briannfo@aol.com (BrianNFO) writes:P > > Wanted to get some thoughts on a poorly performing VAX 7610.  The system hasO > > 128 MB memory (maybe that's a big part of the problem right there) and it's P > > hard faulting way too much.  I think this is driving up Interrupt and Kernel
 > > modes. > >cA > > If I monitor the type of page faults, hard faulting is almostkO > > constant...clearly a bad thing.  Free list is around 50,000 pages...but one.P > > thing I notice is that about 50-75% of the faults are Demand Zero and GlobalJ > > Valid faults.  I'm trying to recall...are Demand Zero because of image > > activations? > >oP > > Individual user processes do not seem to be faulting excessively, so I think' > > working sets are sized at least ok.f > > # > > Thoughts?  Thanks in advance...  > >  > H >         Yes... using -- Destroyer of the Environment -- Google revealsE >         image activitions are demand zero related , also hard faultyF >         recommendations are below that.  Running a common image?  IfI >         so, is it INSTALLed?  Running a bunch of DCL scripts?  What youv >         running?   Rob's pretty much explained it.n  N If you have many image activations of commonly used functions, installing themO as 'KNOWN' images will help in some ways.  I'd wonder about help on the 'DEMAND M ZERO' faults since it's my impression that these are process specific and not 
 shared pages.   P Another possibly fix is that if you have a number of programs that are part of aJ specific application, such as a menu and a number of programs, linking allL together into one image and installing it shared does help, but that isn't a trival solution.  K With a free list of 50000 pages, you either have enough memory, or you havewJ working set numbers that are too small.  You indicate that faulting is notJ excessive, so it may be the former.  Still, you could experiment with someM increases in working set numbers.  Pages on the free list are not working forh you.   Dave   -- t4 David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-04504 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596> DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com6 T-Soft, Inc.  170 Grimplin Road  Vanderbilt, PA  15486   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:55:29 -0600 - From: Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com>uJ Subject: War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now); Message-ID: <418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768171@DENXCH>a  D My apologies to the group for my unintentional "bad-format" postingsG today... seems as though, as a couple of you have privately informed me1I (without which I'd-a been clueless, since when I glance at my own postingnJ with Outlook, they look just fine!), my Outlook 2000 (C/W mode) client hasL volunteered to send messages, including my postings of today, in "RTF" (with HTML/MIME attachments)...   K This in spite of the fact that I've got Tools/Options/Mail Format: "Send inIJ this message format: Plain Text" ... Never mind that, MS-Outlook must knowH better!... who knows how long I've been polluting my correspondents with this evil RTF stuff?!s  G Anyway, three things:  1) Again, my humble apologies for non-plain-textoH postings... 'twas truly unintentional (hey, why am *I* apologizing for a  MS-application screw-up, eh? ;-)  I 2)  I'm trying to fix it thus:  I've set up a Personal Address Book entry K for this discussion group (I'd previously just been cut-&-pasting the emailiJ address), and I've made sure that the check-box which says "Always send toI this recipient in Microsoft Exchange rich text format" is UNchecked (even.J with the aforementioned Plain Text option enabled... seems redundant, but,L oh well... btw, a Contacts email recipient address has no such RFT-disablingE check-box... asymmetrical, but go figure?!  Various Outlook "experts" J deprecate PABook in favor of the Contacts list, but if you can't configureG and control this RFT crap for a Contacts correspondent, then what's theu use?).  G Hopefully, now when I post using this PABook entry, Outlook will do theiL right thing... that's how I'm posting this message, and I'd appreciate it ifG one of you (please, not everyone! --- maybe just John Malmberg or ShaneeI Smith who alerted me to the problem) would confirm to me that indeed this   posting is now correct?  Thanks!  K And, John, thanks for the Outlook configuration tips & ideas you sent me... L unfortunately, what works for you with Outlook Express *doesn't* work for meD with Outlook corporate workstation (or C/W mode, imposed on me by myI employer), and both are, in turn, different from how the Outlook Internet,C Only (or IO) variant works!... Configuration of each variant yields I confounding dialog boxes which are "twisty mazes and passages all leadingtD off into different directions" (see, for example, Barry Simon's bookL "Maximizing Outlook 2000", Osborne 1999, which vainly attempts to make senseL of this product --- he wrote a whole 14-page appendix covering the perils ofL RTF/HTML/plain-text configuration issues.  To the best of my ability, my ownF Outlook C/W configuration follows all of his rules for plain-text-only) messages... so what's come undone now?!).r  F Apparently there are ways to get some things set, but not reset... andJ "features", like RTF, can get indeterminately re-enabled behind the user's= back?  This is an application developed by professionals in a.L multi-billion-$ company, and intended for serious use by business, industry,* government and academia?... gimme a break!  J And if *somebody* actually does know how to globally disable RTF/HTML/MIMEJ posting in Outlook, once and for all, without needing to point-&-click forH each present-and-future address/recipient, please post that wisdom here!  J 3)  It's little application "accidents" like this which make me a stalwartL friend-of-VMS... certainly I don't experience surprises and misbehavior likeL this with VMS applications.  And it sure doesn't take a shelf-full of 3-inch7 "Using/Maximizing..." books to safely use them, either!t  H And if this message still posts incorrectly, maybe I'll get some time toF configure VMSmail for SMTP and could then use that for posting to thisI discussion group... less convenient, but *that'd* be plain-text for sure!   E Certainly off-topic from VMS, and again, my apologies, but maybe this L configuration war-story can help someone else... and it does support various5 other points and observations re: VMS vs. "the rest".    regards,  @ Lorin Ricker                            Lorin.Ricker@T-NETIX.com
 Lock&Track5 T-NETIX, Inc.                           (303)705-5575u 67 Inverness Drive Eastb8 Englewood, Colorado 80112      http://www.LockTrack.com/   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:20:21 -0500i) From: "John E. Malmberg" <wb8tyw@qsl.net>aN Subject: Re: War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now)/ Message-ID: <sslgc76luorb64@corp.supernews.com>   : "Lorin Ricker" <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com> wrote in message5 news:418E68E524A8D311ACCE00508B78866A768171@DENXCH... F > My apologies to the group for my unintentional "bad-format" postings
 > today... No real problems :-)  K I still have not found the settings that a few had a while back that causedr@ 8 copies of all messages to be sent, each in a different format.6 Fortunately those afflicted were able to find and fix.   Now that was a bit annoying.  I > Hopefully, now when I post using this PABook entry, Outlook will do theiK > right thing... that's how I'm posting this message, and I'd appreciate it  ifI > one of you (please, not everyone! --- maybe just John Malmberg or ShaneaK > Smith who alerted me to the problem) would confirm to me that indeed thisC" > posting is now correct?  Thanks!  E This posting was in plain text format.  So what you did fixed things.   G > And, John, thanks for the Outlook configuration tips & ideas you sents me...nK > unfortunately, what works for you with Outlook Express *doesn't* work fort me  H I do not know how many variants of Outlook are out there, and which onesI supercede each other.  All of them seem to have a slightly different looke	 and feel.o  L > And if *somebody* actually does know how to globally disable RTF/HTML/MIMEL > posting in Outlook, once and for all, without needing to point-&-click forJ > each present-and-future address/recipient, please post that wisdom here!  K I am sure that someone could find the space for posting it on a web page toe point people at.  L > 3)  It's little application "accidents" like this which make me a stalwartI > friend-of-VMS... certainly I don't experience surprises and misbehavioro likeG > this with VMS applications.  And it sure doesn't take a shelf-full of  3-inch9 > "Using/Maximizing..." books to safely use them, either!h  J VMS knows when you want to look at or print a document, you do not want toI modify it, or have it execute macros that only make sense for use while at document is being composed.c   -Johnt wb8tyw@qsl.network   ------------------------------  % Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 02:30:50 -0000a% From: dpm@myths.com (David P. Murphy).N Subject: Re: War story: Accidental postings in HTML/MIME (hopefully fixed now)/ Message-ID: <sslh2qh27jsc5a@news.supernews.com>r  . Lorin Ricker <Lorin.Ricker@t-netix.com> wrote:F > My apologies to the group for my unintentional "bad-format" postingsI > today... seems as though, as a couple of you have privately informed me K > (without which I'd-a been clueless, since when I glance at my own postingrL > with Outlook, they look just fine!), my Outlook 2000 (C/W mode) client hasN > volunteered to send messages, including my postings of today, in "RTF" (with > HTML/MIME attachments)...   M > This in spite of the fact that I've got Tools/Options/Mail Format: "Send iniL > this message format: Plain Text" ... Never mind that, MS-Outlook must knowJ > better!... who knows how long I've been polluting my correspondents with > this evil RTF stuff?!n  C I keep the HTML from being generated by clicking on File/PropertiesaC *while composing a message*.  This leads to "Format" at which pointrG you must choose UUencode.  Since this is microsoft, this will of coursehB NOT encode your message at all, but instead will prevent the HTML.   I am _not_ making this up.   ok dpml -- s3 David P. Murphy          http://www.myths.com/~dpm/c- systems programmer        ftp://ftp.myths.comyC                          mailto:dpm@myths.com            (personal)aC COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO     mailto:dmurphy@ac-tech.com          (work)o   ------------------------------  # Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:53:35 GMTt From: kparris@my-deja.comB, Subject: Re: what path does clustering use??) Message-ID: <8qe00l$s50$1@nnrp1.deja.com>w   Dirk Munk <munk@home.nl> wrote:,C > AFAIK Compaq is considering/building SCS over fibrechannel, whicha  E When I last spoke with VMS Engineering about this (San Diego Fall '99 H DECUS), the status was that while the initial FC adapter (KFPSA) had theB hooks for host-to-host communications, future adapter designs fromF Compaq's FC adapter vendor would not, so there were no plans to do SCSH over FC.  I haven't heard of a change in that situation, but I'd love toG be pleasantly surprised.  In any case, I'd really like to see some sortmC of viable CI replacement strategy from Compaq -- it's long overdue.i  G > seems the only logical thing to do to prevent a expensive double highnC > performance network topology (FC + Gigabit Ethernet or so) if youl" > want to build a cluster with FC.  H Cisco agrees that building a double network (IP plus Fibre Channel) is aH bad idea (because Brocade would get lots of dollars for switches insteadD of Cisco).  So they've proposed SCSI over IP.  Here's an interestingH question: Which is most likely to win out in the marketplace: IP over FCD as proposed by a SAN vendor, or SCSI over IP as proposed by a router vendor? :-) G -----------------------------------------------------------------------oG Keith Parris|Integrity Computing,Inc.|parris@decuserve.decus.org-nospam F VMS Consulting: Clusters, Perf., Alpha porting, Storage&I/O, Internals    & Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.w   ------------------------------  % Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:27:21 -0400g" From: Dan Sugalski <dan@sidhe.org>, Subject: Re: what path does clustering use??; Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.0.20000921182651.02206340@24.8.96.48>t  5 At 09:53 PM 9/21/00 +0000, kparris@my-deja.com wrote:c  >Dirk Munk <munk@home.nl> wrote:E > > AFAIK Compaq is considering/building SCS over fibrechannel, whiche > F >When I last spoke with VMS Engineering about this (San Diego Fall '99I >DECUS), the status was that while the initial FC adapter (KFPSA) had theBC >hooks for host-to-host communications, future adapter designs fromcG >Compaq's FC adapter vendor would not, so there were no plans to do SCStI >over FC.  I haven't heard of a change in that situation, but I'd love todH >be pleasantly surprised.  In any case, I'd really like to see some sortD >of viable CI replacement strategy from Compaq -- it's long overdue.  K Hasn't Compaq made some sort of noise about clustering over FC? I though I c9 heard something of the sort as part of he 7.3 field test.o   					Dan  I --------------------------------------"it's like this"------------------- 2 Dan Sugalski                          even samurai? dan@sidhe.org                         have teddy bears and eveng;                                       teddy bears get drunko   ------------------------------   End of INFO-VAX 2000.530 ************************