HP-720 vs IBM-320 vs Sparc2

[System Admin Mike Peterson]

In article <1991Jun6.151807.670 at idaho.uucp> rhodesii at idaho.uucp (III) writes:
>Immediate disclaimer. I'm an expert in nothing, just a user
>who had a chance to demo an HP-720 for 10 days and had a
>chance to compare it to our IBM-320 and SUN Sparc2.
>
>MISC Nice features:
>    1. It is fast what more can say. If it core dumps, it
>       core dumps fast! -and we saw plenty.

Not my experience! It took 1-2 minutes to dump even small programs
from csh (from rlogin sessions). If a background job core dumped, your
foreground csh would hang for the duration.

>C) FORTRAN
>   7.  The fortran compiler (quietly sometimes) links into the C library.
>       Sometimes it warns you, e.g.
>
>   8.  Lack of FORTRAN callable flush and loc functions. I want to be
>       able to flush my own buffers, and I want to be able to implement
>       my own memory management routines w/o C calls.

These are because there are no BSD libraries, though the IBM has very few
BSD F77/I77/U77 routines either, and will happily link C versions with
the same name.

>However, overall the HP-UNIX seemed a little crude compared to 
>the IBM AIX and the SUNOS as well. This surprised me since I 
>thought after acquiring Apollo that HP acquired a few years worth 
>of UNIX experience as well and that it would be more robust.

Apollo has had very little "real" UNIX experience (the kernel of Domain/OS is
not real UNIX). Until late 1989, their only OS was Aegis, which is
proprietary; they provided some user-level UNIX shells/commands as an overlay
on Aegis. Based on the Apollo Users Group meetings, still 75% of their
customers run Aegis as their primary environment; UNIX-only sites like
ourselves have had a lot of problems. The history of HP-UX is much longer,
but it is SYS5-based as you pointed out, which is a BIG pain.
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system at alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775