From: mann@intacc.uucp (Jeff Mann)
Subject: Re: An A/UX old-timer considers throwing in the towel
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:58:38 GMT
Organization: Inter/Access Artists' Centre Toronto

In article <1992Mar24.192446.6844@panix.com> alexis@panix.com (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>
>Those of you who are frequent readers of this group probably know by now
>that I own & operate the world's busiest A/UX system. Panix is a Mac IIfx

I also run a bbs system on A/UX, although it is much smaller than the
Panix operation, having only two incoming modems.  I also like the
features of the A/UX software; it seems to have a good assortment of the
most useful stuff from System V and BSD, and yes, it's easy to port
stuff to.  It fits in with the rest of our Mac network (small office
setup, running MacOs) and office operations -- the rest of the staff can
actually use it without being too intimidated by an "unfriendly"
machine.

>However, A/UX has been an incredible source of difficulty for us from the very
>begining. 50 to 70 percent of the administrative work I have to do on Panix,
>and there's a lot of it, is fixing or working around serious problems and bugs
>in A/UX. Every time I have to kill processes hung on ptys, I wish that I was
>using a Sun.

>For example, it's impossible to get decent serial I/O for A/UX. It just can't
>be done. There are _no_ cards out there that do the job right. So, when we

Yup.  I've wasted *way* to much time trying to track down and fix
various bugs.  We've got a full newsfeed coming in over a Telebit at
19200, and I still can't get it to work consistently -- it transfers a
number of batches then dies.  The problems with uucp and the serial
ports are a nightmare for a bbs operation.  I bought a Digiboard serial
adapter which has its own 68000 cpu on board and half a meg of buffer
memory, which I though would solve the problems, but it's even worse
than the built-ins.  I can't get it to transfer more than a few kb of
news over the telebit before uucp dies.  Yes, I know what flow control
is.  It doesn't seem to help.

>Of course, 3.0 is just around the corner. It will fix many problems in 2.0.1,
>but I don't yet know if it will fix any of the problems that are driving me
>to distraction. I suspect it won't.

All I ask is to be able to have a working newsfeed on my Digiboard (so I can
have my printer port back for appletalk) and to stop having the machine
crash all the time due to serial-port-related panics. Will 3.0 help?

>So the choices are these:
>1) Stick with A/UX. Get a Quadra (perhaps a 950, if it arrives in time).
>2) Get a 486 platform.
>3) Get a Sun.
>4) Get the hot-RISC-box-of-the-week.

We had originally planned a '486 SCO UNIX system, but A/UX looked more
attractive as far as software features and price (and MacOs to boot).
But the hardware was expensive, and the i/o problems make me wish I had
stayed with the '486 idea or got a Sun.  At the time I thought a sun
would be a lot more expensive, but now...  probably a Sun, unless A/UX
shapes up in the connectivity area.

>One more issue that bothers me: The abolute top limit on performance for A/UX
>(i.e., the speed of the fastest Mac) is very low by contemporary standards.
>This can't help but cripple efforts to sell A/UX to customers who might
>potentially be buying dozens or hundreds of machines. After all, if you're
>buying that much hardware, you want some servers to go with the rest of the
>package. Sun, IBM, HP, DEC- they all offer bigger boxes. With A/UX, if you
>need a bigger box, you're dead. This has definitely impacted buying decisions
>at at least a couple of clients of mine, including one who bought into the
>RS/6000 line (I wish those beasts had a decent OS!).

Isn't the next step for A/UX the "Power Open" (stupid name) IBM/Apple
collaboration, putting A/UX on the RS/6000? Or was I dreaming...

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