I've worked at DEC, IBM, and Lucent's Bell Labs and all three had the problem of promoting to management people who were either not skilled at dealing with people or who were less than technically competent.
Sometimes the companies would allow these folks to terrorize the staff with rants and threats. Often they judged these managers by how large their group or department was -- not by the work output and timeliness of project results.
Groups of folks would kiss up to them and they were rewarded with raises and promotions.
I thought working for a small startup would be better -- but I found the same problem with a computer start-up and a telecom one -- since the managers were all trained in the above big companies.
I've worked for one good manager in the last 12 years -- in 3 jobs in 3 companies including two of the above biggies. If you get a good manager try to hang on tight...
Most of them are more even clueless than the HR staff.
I think I could run a company better by just running it like the budget was my checkbook.
I saw the contents of the Enron bankrupcy auction and it sickened me. Piles of what looked like under-used computer equipment and aeron chair I bet the janitor had a laptop and docking station.
As far as basic research... there are few companies doing anything but product oriented work now. The days of Bell Labs doing a lot of serious research are long past. It's been less than spectacular for more than 5 years.
That was a byproduct of the regulated telecom industry and the profits it brought.
IBM has always done work with a serious connection to their current and future businesses.
The problem is there's no "Computer Guys" out there.
I've done 24 or more Unix varients including Coherent, Xelos, Concentrix, RTU, *BSD, *Linux*, SCO, Solaris, SunOS, etc... And VAX/VMS, RT11 etc.
I started as a Field Service hardware guy and worked my way to sysadmin through support jobs and ended up as a trainer. If you understand how a system works you can pick up the commands needed to solve all the problems.
If you think a computer is a magic self-repairing intelligent being... you'll lose.
I think some of the worst Sysadmins were programmers who failed their way down to sysadmin and some of the best were operators who learned their way up in the old days.
Now the operations staff is so compartmentalized they have specialist sysadmins who just fix print queues and just add users.
If you haven't brought up a server from the raw iron including a full OS install and partitioning you ain't a sysadmin.
Well, there's a few of us old dinosaurs out there... but the companies look to hire "certified" admins who work cheap.
Good old seat of the pants generalists often are overlooked in favor of the latest Whiz-Bang rookies straight out of the memorize for the certification test prep school.
I was a trainer doing sysadmin training for one of the big iron multiprocessor Unix boxes -- and in '93 you could see the beginning of the end as folks who were basically operators became sysadmins.
It's a fad... but I'm running FreeBSD here...
Great selection... loved "Unix Hater's Handbook" as a former DEC VAX/VMS user... but my Vax is old and slow and non-commercial use only and my not-so-slow intel box needed an OS to run.
Bill
I bet it's just because of the smaller kernel and simpler less involved SCSI subsystem.
The new one seems to be more reliable and better at recovery -- but I think it's a bit larger and bulkier. If the hardware's right I think 2.2.8 was a bit quicker.
The real screamer was 1.1.5.1 on a 486 8-)
I want to get the time to reinstall that bugger on a K6-2/450 with an AHA-1542B and see how it flies with 128mb of memory.
8-)
Sometimes you use the right os for the right job.
FreeBSD makes a great web and backup server
supporting the departmental Sun systems
and the Network Appliance Filer.
# uname -a
FreeBSD backup.ho.lucent.com 4.2-STABLE FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE #0: Mon Jan 8 16:05
#uname -a
SunOS babel 5.8 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
#uname -a
Linux pechter 2.4.0 #9 Mon Jan 15 16:03:01 EST 2001 i586 unknown
Why not just run their original SMP clusters
that they had before Unix clusters existed.
(TOPS10 did SMP big time before there were even Vax Clusters -- not to mention Unix clusters).
Re:how fast were these things?
on
PDP-10 Revival
·
· Score: 4
They weren't lightening -- but they scaled well.
They ran TOPS-10 or TOPS-20 and did real nice SMP with more than 3 cpu's supported (even back in the old days).
I guess they were in the 1 mips range (KL10) or less (KA cpu, KI cpu, KS cpu) -- but with much more load handling than the 11/780 which really was less powerful than the KL10.
The TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 operating systems (both were available for the PDP10) were easy to use, friendly and WAS NOT UNIX like in the slightest.
They handled a ton of timeshared users efficiently and reliably and made IBM take notice of timeshared use. The OS was written in Macro10
(macro assembler) and the instruction set was RISC-like.
Microsoft did most of it's development cross developing on this CPU type. (As did DEC -- which used them for emulation of new CPU designs and for cross development of software for the PDP8 at times).
GCC would be interesting -- remember this isn't just another a POSIX box.
This is the CPU where EMACS really was born as editing MACROS for TECO (Tape--er Text Editor and Corrector).
Had Kernighan, Thompson and Richie gotten one of these they wouldn't have developed Unix in the first place.
These machines were used as some of the first machines on the internet. They were heavy crunching boxes at Western Electric for engineering time sharing.
Rutgers University had three that I knew of,
Columbia, Rider College, Johnson and Johnson...
I don't think Microsoft is using Linux in Windows... Where's Petreley's proof. Just a rumor... Geez.
Since they've used the BSD code base before in Windows (take a look at the Winsock stuff and Winsock2 and some of their TCP/IP stack in NT) they may be using it to improve things. This, of course is legal and ok under the BSD license.
Perhaps "Linux" is just the Microsoft shorthand for Open Source Unix-like software.
Build on an Ethernet port and sell it with 64mb of memory and the IDE interface for the $3-400 with enough powersupply to run a 2gb laptop 2 1/2 IDE and you should sell a number of these boxes.
I'd consider buying one with Ethernet in a minute if I could put a 2gb IDE on it and run FreeBSD.
Not to knock QNX -- but I've got higher demands on my network terminal... including X11.
I'm a big FreeBSD'er, but for me the Mandrake install and desktop work pretty well (and I'm a Caldera licensee for 2.2 and 2.3).
FreeBSD's the easiest and most solid desktop Unix I've worked with (including SCO, Solaris, UnixWare)... but Mandrake dropped in and had the best standard desktop setup I've seen.
On the cases where Mandrake failed to install out of the box, I was able to repartition and remake the file systems and device nodes on the fly and continue the install.
I'm looking to see if I can graft some of the Mandrake KDE configs on FreeBSD.
From what I see here I've got to take a new look at Slackware, (my old favorite after SLS in the 0.99 days), again.
Well strings on login on SunOS 4 shows "You have mail"
So, since login came from the official AT&T System V sources (about 1983 or so) they should be ok on "You have mail" -- however, You've got mail may be another story...
However the layers of legal @#$%^&*( that cause this stuff is just plain silly. You should NOT be able to trademark or copyright "You've got mail"
Slashdot Mirror
BNews (original Usenet News)followed by CNews
Here's More...
Anyone want to challenge it -- I'll find prior art on this one.
They're an OEM with access to the API's now.
Imagine that... A stable OS that COULD RUN WINAPPS.
"About 10 years too late -- this court was"
-- Yoda.
I've worked at DEC, IBM, and Lucent's Bell Labs and all three had the problem of promoting to management people who were either not skilled at dealing with people or who were less than technically competent.
Sometimes the companies would allow these folks to terrorize the staff with rants and threats. Often they judged these managers by how large their group or department was -- not by the work output and timeliness of project results.
Groups of folks would kiss up to them and they were rewarded with raises and promotions.
I thought working for a small startup would be better -- but I found the same problem with a computer start-up and a telecom one -- since the managers were all trained in the above big companies.
I've worked for one good manager in the last 12 years -- in 3 jobs in 3 companies including two of the above biggies. If you get a good manager try to hang on tight...Most of them are more even clueless than the HR staff.
I think I could run a company better by just running it like the budget was my checkbook.
I saw the contents of the Enron bankrupcy auction and it sickened me. Piles of what looked like under-used computer equipment and aeron chair I bet the janitor had a laptop and docking station.
As far as basic research... there are few companies doing anything but product oriented work now. The days of Bell Labs doing a lot of serious research are long past. It's been less than spectacular for more than 5 years.
That was a byproduct of the regulated telecom industry and the profits it brought.
IBM has always done work with a serious connection to their current and future businesses.
--BillThe problem is there's no "Computer Guys" out there.
I've done 24 or more Unix varients including
Coherent, Xelos, Concentrix, RTU, *BSD, *Linux*,
SCO, Solaris, SunOS, etc... And VAX/VMS, RT11 etc.
I started as a Field Service hardware guy and worked my way to sysadmin through support jobs
and ended up as a trainer. If you understand how a system works you can pick up the commands needed to solve all the problems.
If you think a computer is a magic self-repairing intelligent being... you'll lose.
I think some of the worst Sysadmins were programmers who failed their way down to sysadmin and some of the best were operators who learned their way up in the old days.
Now the operations staff is so compartmentalized they have specialist sysadmins who just fix print queues and just add users.
If you haven't brought up a server from the raw iron including a full OS install and partitioning you ain't a sysadmin.
Bill Pechter
--bpechter@monmouth.com
Well, there's a few of us old dinosaurs out there... but the companies look to hire "certified" admins who work cheap.
Good old seat of the pants generalists often are overlooked in favor of the latest Whiz-Bang rookies straight out of the memorize for the certification test prep school.
I was a trainer doing sysadmin training for one of the big iron multiprocessor Unix boxes -- and in '93 you could see the beginning of the end as folks who were basically operators became sysadmins.
Bill Pechter
Wouldn't have expected too much more from Pitman who was an ass when he was Program Director of WNBC and put Ellie Dylan in to replace Don Imus.
A suit with a great ad sales background...
Another non-computer guy in a high tech company.
Bill
It's a fad... but I'm running FreeBSD here... Great selection... loved "Unix Hater's Handbook" as a former DEC VAX/VMS user... but my Vax is old and slow and non-commercial use only and my not-so-slow intel box needed an OS to run. Bill
Where?
What model?
bill
(ex-Pyramid Unix Instructor and employee)
I bet it's just because of the smaller kernel and simpler less involved SCSI subsystem.
The new one seems to be more reliable and better at recovery -- but I think it's a bit larger and bulkier. If the hardware's right I think 2.2.8 was a bit quicker.
The real screamer was 1.1.5.1 on a 486 8-)
I want to get the time to reinstall that bugger on a K6-2/450 with an AHA-1542B and see how it flies with 128mb of memory.
8-)
Not every open sourcer uses linux...
Sometimes you use the right os for the right job.
FreeBSD makes a great web and backup server
supporting the departmental Sun systems
and the Network Appliance Filer.
# uname -a
FreeBSD backup.ho.lucent.com 4.2-STABLE FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE #0: Mon Jan 8 16:05
#uname -a
SunOS babel 5.8 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
#uname -a
Linux pechter 2.4.0 #9 Mon Jan 15 16:03:01 EST 2001 i586 unknown
--Bill
how'd it compare with the VAX9000 -- I left DEC after the 8650 and never saw the Vax Mainframe...
Why not just run their original SMP clusters
that they had before Unix clusters existed.
(TOPS10 did SMP big time before there were even Vax Clusters -- not to mention Unix clusters).
They weren't lightening -- but they scaled well.
They ran TOPS-10 or TOPS-20 and did real nice SMP with more than 3 cpu's supported (even back in the old days).
I guess they were in the 1 mips range (KL10) or less (KA cpu, KI cpu, KS cpu) -- but with much more load handling than the 11/780 which really was less powerful than the KL10.
The TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 operating systems (both were available for the PDP10) were easy to use, friendly and WAS NOT UNIX like in the slightest.
They handled a ton of timeshared users efficiently and reliably and made IBM take notice of timeshared use. The OS was written in Macro10
(macro assembler) and the instruction set was RISC-like.
Microsoft did most of it's development cross developing on this CPU type. (As did DEC -- which used them for emulation of new CPU designs and for cross development of software for the PDP8 at times).
GCC would be interesting -- remember this isn't just another a POSIX box.
This is the CPU where EMACS really was born as editing MACROS for TECO (Tape--er Text Editor and Corrector).
Had Kernighan, Thompson and Richie gotten one of these they wouldn't have developed Unix in the first place.
These machines were used as some of the first machines on the internet. They were heavy crunching boxes at Western Electric for engineering time sharing.
Rutgers University had three that I knew of,
Columbia, Rider College, Johnson and Johnson...
These were CLASSIC Machines.
See alt.sys.pdp10.
--Bill
Well, WordStar's still my favorite word processor.
Vi's a necessary evil, but it works and troff's ok.
Remember Ctl-hjkl is just there because those were the cursor control keys on an ADM3A.
Wordstar lives. Too bad MicroPro didn't open source it.
Wordstar on Unix with an X previewer.
Yyyyeeessss.
--Bill
I don't think Microsoft is using Linux in Windows... Where's Petreley's proof. Just a rumor... Geez.
Since they've used the BSD code base before in Windows (take a look at the Winsock stuff and Winsock2 and some of their TCP/IP stack in NT) they may be using it to improve things. This, of course is legal and ok under the BSD license.
Perhaps "Linux" is just the Microsoft shorthand for Open Source Unix-like software.
--Bill Pechter
Build on an Ethernet port and sell it with 64mb of memory and the IDE interface for the $3-400 with enough powersupply to run a 2gb laptop 2 1/2 IDE and you should sell a number of these boxes.
I'd consider buying one with Ethernet in a minute if I could put a 2gb IDE on it and run FreeBSD.
Not to knock QNX -- but I've got higher demands on my network terminal... including X11.
Bill
I'm a big FreeBSD'er, but for me the Mandrake install and desktop work pretty well (and I'm a Caldera licensee for 2.2 and 2.3).
FreeBSD's the easiest and most solid desktop Unix I've worked with (including SCO, Solaris, UnixWare)... but Mandrake dropped in and had the best standard desktop setup I've seen.
On the cases where Mandrake failed to install out of the box, I was able to repartition and remake the file systems and device nodes on the fly and continue the install.
I'm looking to see if I can graft some of the Mandrake KDE configs on FreeBSD.
From what I see here I've got to take a new look at Slackware, (my old favorite after SLS in the 0.99 days), again.
Bill
Well strings on login on SunOS 4 shows
"You have mail"
So, since login came from the official AT&T
System V sources (about 1983 or so) they should
be ok on "You have mail" -- however, You've got mail may be another story...
However the layers of legal @#$%^&*( that
cause this stuff is just plain silly. You should
NOT be able to trademark or copyright "You've got mail"
I want to copyright and trademark the following:
Username:
login:
and
Password: or password
--bill