#UNIX Fever
37 messages in this thread
As you seem to have direct experience with UNIX systems I am directing
this message to you but anyone can answer if they want.
I have begun to shop for a new system system for my business (wholesale
distribution). I am considering a UNIX operating system. The Amiga Unix
box looks like a competitive package at first glance and its having a VERY
up to date version of UNIX sounds like a plus. Tell me if I'm nuts for
considering it.
Needs will initially be 6-8 terminals in fairly constant use for order
entry/inventory control/billing/accounts receivable system. A minimum of
two fast printers. 200mb hard drive minimum w/tape backup. Need good
telcom capabilities for EDI transfer of orders/information/pricing
(currently ansi x.12 format). We do 200-500 invoices/day.
I assume programmimg efforts would be transportable between platforms as
long as a "pure" UNIX is used. Yah, I don't know squat about it yet. Our
current system is a TI 990 mini that is 1984 vintage and I don't see
spending more money on software that is NOT transportable without a major
effort. I am ready to make a clean break and some of the offered canned
packages will do nicely.
I know I should buy a nice fat "tower" with a 486 or a phalanx of 68030s
but I kinda like Amigas. I could hide that tiny A3000 inside my current
minicomputer rack with all kinds of room to spare. Any reasonable comments
will be appreciated.
….Mark Sterling
Mark,
I've played with the 3000UX at my dealer's. Unfortunately, his
machine is limited to 2 users (license limitation) so I have no experience
with loading it up with users and seeing what happens.
It's running AT&T SVR4 while our machines at work are running AT&T
SVR3. They are very similar in that respect…but there are differences.
Thus, it's hard for me to give you a comparison…or to really
speculate how well the UX would work with 6 to 8 concurrent users. I
suspect it'll handle it ok if you've got at least 8 meg of memory.
Obviously it will depend on the database being used for your
ordering/billing/inventory,etc. system.
Yes, applications should be portable. Yes, with SVR4, you should
soon start to see "off the shelf" software since at the most…a recompile
should be all that's necessary to port from one CPU type to another.
Within the same CPU family, properly designed software should run without
even needing a recompile.
I'm sorry I can't be more definate…I really do suspect that a
3000UX would handle your needs…but I can't say that positively.
Don
Don,
I didn't expect a "definite" answer whether or not a 3000UX would handle
the situation I described. The indication that it "might" is more what I
was looking for. I will do more checking before I seriously consider it.
You mentioned that the license your dealer had was for only two users.
Does this mean that when Joe Blow buys a 3000UX he only gets a two-user
license? Any idea what it would cost to add a few more (6-8 total)? I
should get to see a 3000UX network in two weeks but I doubt it will be more
than two users.
Sure the Database program will make a big difference in performance in a
network environment. I wondered if the the 3000 had the bandwidth to
handle a respectable amount of traffic without coming to its knees.
Certainly I would run 8meg of ram or so (my old 2500 has 7meg). I know
some hardware is more bulletproof than others but you can almost replace
the whole machine for what the annual service contract on a mini costs.
I wish a machine with more slots and a 32bit bus was out.
….Mark P.S. Tyanks for the good info.
Mark,
I suspect that since the 3000UX is based on AT&T source code that
it's license levels will be the same as AT&T's license levels on their
micros. That means 8,16 and unlimited user licenses (perhaps a 4 user
license in there also).
Judging from AT&T's fees…it's a few hundred to bump levels, which
means perhaps $400 or so to go from 8 user to unlimited users.
But again, these are AT&T's policies…and Commodore may well adopt
it's own policies that are vastly different. I guess we'll have to wait
and see.
As to the bandwidth…the raw machine has the bandwidth, but
depending on how intelligent the perhiperials are…much of that bandwidth
may be eaten up by having the CPU do all the work associated with the
perhiperials. For example, an intelligent ports card could do all the
character translations, parity checking, flow control, etc.
Or it could be a "dumb" ports card that simply takes the serial
stream dumps it into a buffer and tells the CPU to do all the work.
Same goes for a HD controller…the system can tell it "go get this
and put it there" or the system may have to use the CPU to do all the data
movement.
I'm not sure how intelligent the A2232 (the multi=serial card) is,
but the HD controller on the 3000 is an intelligent controller.
My suspicion is that the 3000UX will be ok at the 6 to 8 user
level.
Don
Don,
I saw an announcement on Computer Chronicles Saturday that Commodore
announced the A3000UX. Maybe this means it will be shipping regularly.
Maybe I can get some straight answers from C= about some of the details.
I didn't think about serial card differences causing a bottleneck.
However I DID read an article that mentioned that Hayes was making a
super-duper serial card for MS-Dos machines that would handle some of the
work to allow better throughput with their high speed modems. Maybe I
should direct an inquiry to Perry at ASDG about how smart various Amiga
serial cards are.
I'm not stuck on UNIX but it would allow me to keep my printers and
terminals to use with the new system. I'm told that Unix will allow a wide
range of terminals and printers to be used.
At least I won't get fired if I choose an Amiga. I'm the boss. P^]
….Mark
Mark,
Yes…just about any RS232 ASCII terminal can be used with a UNIX
box. Printers are a bit harder, but not that much.
Don
Yes, Commodore has finally done its [final] announcement on the A3000UX
as far as I can see and yes, it will be shipping regulary from what I've
been told.
>I am told that UNIX will allow a wide range of terminals and printers
>to be used.
Tat is true.
The Amiga Unix machines were released for sale after the UniForum in
Dallas, January 22. You can orer them from Commodore now. I believe that
the student model (less memory, smaller hard disk, no Ethernet board) was
$4999 and the professional model was $5999 suggested list price. I'm sure
you can find it below list price, though.
Betty
Betty,
Thanks for the prices. I called my local dealer and he was pretty fuzzy
on the prices although he was in the ballpark. I wonder why it comes with
the Ethernet board? Certainly some will want it but not all users. I told
him I wanted prices on:
-A3000UX with
-9 meg ram
-200 mb hard drive
-150mb tape backup
-7 port serial card
-1950 monitor if it was a good deal
I would expect to run terminals from six of the serial ports and hang a
couple of printers on there. Maybe I could sell the Ethernet card. I
don't have any LANs to connect to.
….Mark
The 3000UX that has the 200M disk also comes with 9M standard. The tape
drive is optional, as is the serial card and the 1950. The UNIX and
AMIGADOS systems are already installed on the hard disk when you get the
machine.
Betty
I just read an article in Amigaworld that said the A3000UX was $4999 and
the professional version was $6999. This means they charge $2000 for a
larger drive, 4meg or ram and the Ethernet card.
$400 swap 100 megger for 200 meg (this is kinda high)
$400 Ethernet card (think this was the announced price)
$400 4 meg of ram (I wouldn't pay this much but..)
—-
$1200 This seems like a reasonable price for all this. So why buy the
professional version? Is something else included like the A2410 display
card?
….Mark
Mark,
They mentioned the $4999 price with the same breath as students, so I
think they may have confused the issue by giving a discounted price.
— Jane H. (Writing, it's easier read than done.)
Jane,
The $4999 price is the suggested retail price for the Unix machine that was
designed for students – NOT the student price. The educational price is
MUCH lower, though I don't recall exactly what it is – something like 60%
of the suggested retail, though. Anyone can purchase the machine with
smaller disk, less memory, and no networking card, but it was designed for
student use, and does not really have enough memory to do big applications
such as businesses would need, nor to handle color easily, and so on. At
least, the salesman told me that they would not recommend that color
displays be used with the smaller machine because lack of memory would make
them very slow. Adding the U of Lowell card would eliminate this problem
because that card carries its own memory.
Betty
Mark, the more expensive Unix machine also has LOTS more memory, and maybe
other things. I think I wrote that article – a report on Uniforum and the
launch of the A3000 – and I was working from literature they gave me at the
Commodore booth and from an interview with Paul Calkin but that was in late
January, and I don't remember all the details right now. I do know that
the less expensive machine had about four or five MB of memory and the more
expensive one had 9. There may be other differences that I have forgotten
at the moment.
Betty
Betty,
I know the larger Unix machine has 9 meg of ram, a 200 meg drive and an
ethernet card but that doesn't quite explain the difference. I wonder if
there is something else or if the Unix software license extended (more
users). Today I tried to call Commodore to get the straight poop. Silly
me. I got through on the non-toll-free line and they just told me to call
the 800 number which was busy all day. Some things never change.
….Mark
Is say a local terminal on a VT320 supported as a system printer? Under
XENIX you can set them up that way…
Sorry, Patrick – I don't have that many details about the Unix computers.
Wish I could help.
Betty
Patrick,
Yes…you can define a printer to "reside" on any port in the
system. As long as whatever it is that is attached to that port responds
normally to port specific signals (follows RS232 standards for the serial
port, Centronics standards for the parallel port) you should have no
problem. UNIX itself could care less what is actually on that port.
Thus…if you had a terminal on that port instead of a printer…it
would display the file rather than print it.
Don
Don, that's not quite what I meant. VTs have a "transparent print" mode
where when they receive a certain escape sequence (<CSI>4? or something )
they send all following output to the attached printer until the ending
escape sequence at which point normal interative processing continues.
Under XENIX I have special devices, which as far as the OS is concerned,
are regular TTY devices. These devices, when they receive data, say for a
print job, send the start sequence,the data, and the end sequence to a
normal TTY line…Hope this was not too confusing an explanation hehe.
The A2232 has a 65CE02, a 8520, and seven 6551s, plus two 6264 RAMs, and a
pair of 1488/1489s for each port. Does that sound intelligent? 🙂 One
nice thing about it is a series of jumpers that let you set up each port as
DTE or DCE. Plus, it comes with seven cables, which shows rare foresight
on CBM's part.
John,
Well…the 1488/1489's are just drivers…no intelligence there.
The 6551's are (I *believe*) just UARTs…so again…no intelligence there.
The RAM is probably buffering and the 8520 would be the clock and may
handle hardware handshaking. The 6502 may just end up being a traffic
cop…and not handle any character translations, parity checking, etc.
I'm not sure it could handle all 7 ports at top speed.
Then again…I could be wrong.
Don
Yeah, almost looks like a C-64 on a board, minus the graphics chips. 🙂
I know they can't handle MIDI speeds… and I forget whether the top speed
is 9600 or 19200.
Seems like either 9600 or 19200 are OK for adding terminals. Other
applications might be more demanding. I run terminals attached to a mini
at 9600 and can run them at 19200 but the apparent difference is
negligible. On the other hand a 19200 limit for serial port speed sounds
like a problem for high speed modems with hardware data compression or
maybe for graphics terminals (guessing on that one). I remember that the
ASDG serial card is capable of some much higher speeds.
….Mark
Mark:
Isn't the C= card capable of 115K baud on 1 port at a time? (that is you
can have the other ports set at various rates, and only 1 at a time can be
set to 115K baud?)
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
I don't know the specs on the C= serial card. I was just told in a
message about some limit of 19200. It sounded kinda low to me. 115K
sounds a lot better and it makes sense that it would take a lot of
bandwidth to handle seven ports at 115K. I think I had better get some
hard facts before I talk any more about this.
….Mark
An A3000 *is* a 68030-based system. 🙂
Chris,
Yep, I know the A3000 has one 68030. I was talking about a phalanx of
68030s P^)
…Mark
Mark, you may want to wait for the A3500. Although Commodore has not
officially announced it, it is well known that it will be a tower-based
Amiga and that it is near completion. It is certainly talked about quite
often as a near completion unit. However I don't know for certain what
exactly it is or what its specs are, except that it is a tower case.
You should also keep in mind that, although the 030 may be a bit
distressing at first, once the 040 gets into the hands of the rest of the
world (besides NeXT) 6-8 terminals should be fine.
A consideration is, do those 6-8 terminals need graphics? You could
conceivably use A3000 (non-UX) for X-windows terminals which would also be
capable of doing all sorts of other Amiga-type things.
— Ethan
Ethan:
I gather from your threads that you have the A3000UX. If so, may I
ask what sort of documentation comes with it? ie: How extensive?
Regards Tom
We don't have one here yet…. but my understanding is that the Commodore
UNIX UNIX comes with the standard System V docs on-line.
Here at VPI we received the complete man pages with the system (unlike some
of the '386 ports where they unbundle the man pages). I have seen the
paper documentation (in the grad students' lab) and it is several feet
thick. C= also includes some fairly good (and improving) Amiga Unix users
and setup manuals.
'til later
Nathan
Hmmm, I was told that all the docs were on-line with nothing on paper.
Perhaps it was told to me in the wrong context and/or I understood it in
the wrong context. Glad to hear that was not the case. We got a A3000UX in
transit here in a few days, so I guess I'll know for sure then!
Looking at the paper copy, it seems to be the generic AT&T SysVr4 set of
documents. C= does not seem to have customized it at this point. We
(students at VPI) have not (to my knowledge) been offered the paper
documentation, although the bookstore has SysVr4 manuals in it already.
'til later
Nathan
Greg,
Yes, the 3000UX comes with the man command (and appropriate doc
files of course).
Don
No, I don't have the UX. Most of what I say comes from Usenet.
— Ethan
Ethan,
Yes, a tower case version would be ideal. I would expect it to have a
larger power supply and room for more peripherals.
I won't need graphics for the mainline business applications. But I
will expect to use one or more Amigas as terminals. I presently use an
Amiga 2000 with a Bridgeboard on my desk to allow connection to the
existing mini. The only terminal emulators that will work on my TI mini
run only on MS-dos machines. X-windows seems to demand LARGE amounts of
ram (4 meg or so per terminal!) on the host. Order entry would look great
done this way but…..nahhh.
Either way (3000 or 3500) the 68040 upgrade should be easy when the time
comes. Thanks for the advice.
….Mark