[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
FORCED to buy new cart for XL400?
As one of the people who made the decisions about the QIC-100 vs. QIC-11
tape drives and software distribution, I will be happy to answer the
specific questions below, and the philosophy behind the issues of
QIC-100 vs. QIC-11.
The general philosophy is that if we come out with an embedded product,
the software distribution mechanism must match the mechanism of the
host. When we decided to implement MacIvory, we decided that the
"peaceful co-existence" route was the right way to go. We also decided
the MacIvory had to be able to be a stand-alone machine, so that it
really could be used as a delivery vehicle. This means that we had to
use tape drives compatible with the Macintosh, not tape drives
compatible with the 36xx-series machines.
When it came time to decide what tape drive to use on the XL400, we
decided that since the Ivory software was the same, we would use the
same tape drive, and we wouldn't have to cross master and installation
test.
It's not conceptually difficult, or even difficult in practice to write
the contents of one kind of tape onto another kind of tape. The
mastering is a very small part of the tape generation process. The
larger part of the tape generation process is installation-testing and
duplication.
The SQA group spends its entire resources installation testing a release
for at least 4 weeks, to master and test all the tapes for a release.
(It generally takes closer to 8 weeks for all products.) If we were to
cross-master, then we would spend at least half those 4 weeks on every
cross-master. Then we would have to be able to duplicate the software
onto the appropriate media, and we would have to ship every customer a
custom kit of upgrade software.
Right now, we are able to have a software update kits packed for us by a
vendor. If we were to allow our customers to order software updates by
the kind of tape you wanted, we would have to kit and pack the software
by hand ourselves. That would add an enormous cost.
The problem we have is this: There are many customers who already have
36xx machines with cart tape (QIC-11). Some of those people have bought
MacIvories or XL400s. We have some customers who have already bought
MacIvories or XL400s with cart tape drives (QIC-100) who are now buying
refurbished 36xx machines. We cannot afford the time to cross-master,
installation test, and duplicate every tape we produce.
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 15:49:24 EDT
From: MILLER@vax.cam.nist.gov
It seems that ALL software for MacIvory's and XL400's will ONLY be
delivered on the small cartridges. We already have two carts (large) at
our site; it seems extravagant to buy another. That's one of the
reasons we have networks.
Is it really that hard to write this stuff onto large tapes? IBIN files
can live on a 3600's disk, and I can load world files onto a local disk
from a remote cart; Cant symbolics write them onto a remote cart as
well? In any case we should be able to get the layered products on
large carts. It is admittedly a bit more trouble to organize the tape
production, but you do have computers and we're NOT talking about having
to stick a large cart drive into an XL400 cabinet.
If this is indeed the policy, I find it rather arbitrary. So the
XL400's are compatible, huh? If it is not the policy, I apologize;
However, my customer rep thinks this is the policy and even she was
surprized.
Is anybody else having problems with this? What do the symbolics people
on the list think of this?
Bruce Miller
MILLER@VAX.CAM.NIST.GOV
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 17:16 EDT
From: rjb1%vega%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Richard J Brandau)
It seems that ALL software for MacIvory's and XL400's will ONLY be
delivered on the small cartridges. We already have two carts (large) at
our site; it seems extravagant to buy another. That's one of the
reasons we have networks.
I took a census of our large form-factor cart drives, and it comes to
seven. When we bought our first MacIvory, I raised hell with our sales
rep about having to buy yet another tape drive. She acted sympathetic
and volunteered to accept my nasty letter, but it had no effect. The
reply, attributed to the software support organization, was that they
didn't want to have to deliver all the releases and ECOs in both
form-factors.
Somehow someone slipped an order past purchasing, and now we own one of
those little tape drives. So slow that it makes me nostalgic about
DECtape.
But I could live with all that if it weren't for the fact that I now
have an unduplicated tape drive, while before, I had plenty of
redundancy.
This used to bother me a lot. I thought for a while that I could maybe
bribe somebody in Symbolics to cut the large tapes for me. Or to make
it more convenient, maybe they could just increase the price of software
support to cover the extra trouble. But wait! Aren't we paying enough
for this already?
So that's when I gave up on Symbolics support. This year I recommended
that they cancel the hardware contract and let the machines die with
dignity. Now, that software renewal is starting to look pretty
tempting, cost-consciousness-wise.
-- Rich Brandau
GTE Laboratories