No fun at all with Dick & Jane (A/UX 1.1 is hardly perfect...)

[Werner Uhrig]

	[ Alexis asks me to post this for him.  please respond to
	  him at the address he indicates below.   ---Werner ]


Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 02:21:48 EDT 
From: actnyc!jsb at uunet.UU.NET (The Invisible Man)
Message-Id: <8907310621.AA09054 at actnyc> 
To: uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner at uunet.UU.NET
Subject: please post this for me. 

newsgroup: comp.unix.aux
Subject: No fun at all with Dick & Jane (A/UX 1.1 is hardly perfect...)


Ron Flax writes:

> You people are all complaining about problems with A/UX 1.0,
> all of these things are fixed in 1.1.  Furthermore 1.0 was
> primarily designed to be a first cut/developer release of
> A/UX to get a feel for what people would want in a UNIX
> product from Apple.  We've listened to the problems and have
> made the appropriate changes in 1.1.

This is crap. I've defended A/UX in the past, and probably will
again in the future. Still, this makes me mad. The "appropriate
changes" have *NOT* been made. First of all, HFX apparently fails
under certain conditions and can trash your file system. Therefore
the authors have imposed some artificial limitations on it. Or so
I've read in this group- in fact, I'd be surprised if the fellows
who wrote HFX (at starnine) really screwed up so badly, but try and
find out anything definitively...

Even more important, A/UX still uses the System V File System. This
is simply horrible. The reason is that Apple didn't want to take
the time to rewrite sash. Understandable, all things considered, but
tough- you wanna play, you gotta pay. The real problem is that there's
considerable doubt in my mind (and many other people's) that Apple
really does want to play. One thing I know for sure is that Apple
took a potentially enourmous lead in low-price workstations and flushed
it right down the toilet. Not only did they take forever to deliver 1.0,
which when it finally did get shipped was running on by-then wimpy
hardware, but it took an outrageous time to get 1.1 out the door. And
of course the toolbox support, which was supposed to make this Yet-
Another-Undistinguished-Unix-Box desireable, still isn't great (we won't
mention what it was like in 1.0).

> On the subject of getting 1.1, my understanding is that if
> you have subscribed to the Update Service, you should have been
> updated, otherwise you probably havn't.

Everyone who put up with 1.0 deserves a free upgrade. While you're
at it, how about a medal?

> Please stop complaining about an outdated version of A/UX,
> if you have complaints about 1.1 on the other hand we'd like
> to hear them. A/UX is a *market driven* product, not an Apple
> dictate.

Precisely the point. A/UX is about as far from a market-driven product
as I've ever seen. (But many other Apple products come close, but that's
a whole 'nother kettle of spoiled fish...)  Its rough outlines were
defined by a market it can never be competitive for, so Apple can sell
hardware into a different but connected market where that hardware does
have a chance.

But you want to hear complaints, so there they are. While I'm at it,
why don't you fix the various documented bugs that have been floating
around (which make uucp a real problem, for example), bring the port base
up to SVR3 (or dare I ask for R4?), support the FFS, provide a reasonable
tape product (the 40SC is the most shameful piece of garbage ever to come
out of Apple, I think), provide CD-ROM copies, a reasonable manual without
requiring purchase of the $600 set, decent support of what little new
hardware Apple has started selling since A/UX came out, etc. etc.

Am I bitter? Not about A/UX in general. I just bought it, and I knew
exactly what I was getting into. I am disgusted with Apple, which has
changed places with IBM in the last two years. It's especially appalling
when you realize just how many really excellent people work at Apple.
They're in the technical areas, though, and the marketing bozos are still
running the show. Until technical innovation is again allowed to take
center stage at Apple, this sorry state will most likely persist.

(To any Apple employees who may be offended by this: If you read the net,
you're almost certainly *not* in the class of people I am bitching about.)

Alexis Rosen
temporarily at uunet!actnyc!jsb


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