IBM bashing / OSF / SVID / added pennies

[Wayne Hathaway]

My six cents worth (three two-centers), all relating to UNIX-WIZARDS
Digest V6#004:

First, ok at quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) quotes and adds:

>> In article <670025 at hpclscu.HP.COM> shankar at 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 at 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 at 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 at Ames.ARC.NASA.GOV
      Ultra Network Technologies
      2140 Bering drive            with a domain server:
      San Jose, CA 95131              wayne at Ultra.COM
      408-922-0100