Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!xadmx!ultra!wayne@ames.arc.nasa.gov From: ultra!wayne@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Wayne Hathaway) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: IBM bashing / OSF / SVID / added pennies Message-ID: <16792@adm.ARPA> Date: 11 Aug 88 15:27:47 GMT Sender: news@adm.ARPA Lines: 80 My six cents worth (three two-centers), all relating to UNIX-WIZARDS Digest V6#004: First, ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) quotes and adds: >> In article <670025@hpclscu.HP.COM> shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni) writes: >> :How do you think IBM sells anything? Product quality is usually priority >> :number 1 (like the Ford commercial :-)) at most of the big players in the >> :business. > Have you ever used VM/CMS? Or its Pascal compiler? Please note that the original quote went on to say >> Hell hath no fury like the DP manager whose end-of-the-month >> payroll run has been disrupted by a system failure. I personally know of no DP managers who run payrolls under VM/CMS, especially not in Pascal. The point that Shankar was making is that IBM became IBM by selling an industrial-strength product that did what it was supposed to do, period. [And by the way, for what it's worth VM/CMS is still out there more in SPITE of IBM than because of it.] Next ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) adds: > Yes, we all know this based on past experience. Remember the IBM PC > (naww, hardly ever see them anymore :-)? IBM entered into a field it > had no experience in, took some off-the-shelf parts using 5-year-old > technology, bought an operating system from a company mainly selling > BASIC interpreters, called it a product, threw some marketing budget > at it, and look what happened. From MY experience, what IBM did was collect together a bunch of toy components and a toy operating system and beat the hell out of it for several months (many tens of man-years worth, if memory serves) bringing it up to "IBM quality" (whatever that really was) so that it wouldn't break or crash or corrupt data every few minutes. As someone who was actually making a living on pre-IBM PCs under CP/M (does the name Micromation ring any bells any more?), I for one think what IBM did really WAS the start of the "PC Revolution," at least the commercial side of it (I'll leave the other side to the Steves et al). Again, the same point: industrial strength quality, something a business (or a manager) could afford to risk the future on. [I am reminded of a comment from an IBM officer at a SHARE meeting many moons ago, objecting to people saying that IBM made "the Cadillacs of computers" -- his thesis was that IBM made TRUCKS, not Cadillacs.] Then madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) added: > This is partially right. IBM became big by being reliable; they never > did anything really new so what they had was most likely going to > work. With the 360 and 370 series machines they got people locked > into an architecture; which was the better thing to do when your > system was too small? Buy a nice, new, fast machine (real cheap) or > stick with IBM and not have to re-code anything? Less headaches with > IBM, so they stayed. Did I miss something, or isn't this the same discussion that includes a thread about how the SVID can be (or can't be, depending upon the discussant :-) capriciously changed, requiring massive software rewrites to catch up? If so, it sure seems strange to see IBM chastised for recognizing (25 years ago, for crying out loud!) that software porting (upgrading, re-coding, whatever) was going to be so expensive that they could make a mint by selling less cost-effective hardware that avoided it. [I also participated in a "migration" from a 7094 (good old IBSYS, for the other Neanderthals in the audience :-) to a 360, and believe me, I'd happily pay a LOT more for hardware to avoid doing THAT again!] Finally, lest anybody think I am particularly pro-IBM or anti-UNIX or anything, let me add that the best thing I've read in this whole discussion was somebody's line that "IBM supports UNIX like a rope supports a hanging man." Cheers! Wayne Hathaway ultra!wayne@Ames.ARC.NASA.GOV Ultra Network Technologies 2140 Bering drive with a domain server: San Jose, CA 95131 wayne@Ultra.COM 408-922-0100