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Subject: Re: Ask Dr. Roto ROOTus - Issue # 0x1
Newsgroups: hp.field
In-Reply-To: article <> of Mon, 2 Sep 1991 01:31:31 GMT
Status: RO
/ hpuecoz:hp.field / / 7:31 pm Sep 1, 1991 /
ASK Dr Roto ROOTus - Issue Number 0x1
Bad UNIX for anyone.
Copies of this can be gotten by sending email to
The concept behind Dr. Roto Rootus is that you don't call us because if
you call us, we will have to answer your questions and that would cost
our organization money. Since the primary purpose of our organization is
to save money and minimize costs, we have eliminated all our engineers.
We don't do anything useful but then our costs are low.
1) My system is experiencing intermittant problems. Every time I run a certain
program, I get "core dump. bus error". What could it be?
You need to contact your local bus company. Most likely the cause is in
the fuel filter. Have you been using the new 2 for 1 discount tickets
recently?
2) X-Windows on my system doesn't run correctly. I type x11start and it
does not work.
It could be one of two reasons. Either you did not take the X11 SE test
in which case, we will not help you anyway or you are trying to run X11
from a 1200 baud dialup terminal.
3) My system boots up OK at first then prints an error message about
having software that has expired. What could be the problem?
It is a hardware problem. Call your local CE.
4) Why does it take six months between manufacturing release on a
product and the time my customers receive it?
We have to coordinate shipments and insure that all products work
together before release. You would not want your customer to get an
update of one product that did not work with another product, now, would
you? We spend months insuring that all products on the same release are
compatable.
5) My customer just got in his update and not all the products work on
the latest update. What could be wrong?
We don't support new products working together.
6) What is the policy on terminals across the LAN as regards to
licensing?
Simple, if you have a workstation, all users across the LAN count as a
single user unless there are three or more DTC's on the network but if
you have third party terminal controllers, this does not count unless
you are using release 8.06 provided that there are no prior releases
anywhere on the network but this policy might change at the last
revision we announced in March. This was all adequately explained at the
last 8.0 Update Teleclass which you all slept through and was further
clarified and confused by the message in Computer News which was
contradicted by other messages in Support Update, Support News,
Workstation Field News, WKRG Radio audio tapes, intermittant mailings
and HP DESK messages. On the other hand, if the customer has X-Terminals,
they don't count towards the licensing unless they are the 700/X terminals
which are obsolete and which we don't support anyway.
7) But that only confuses the Workstation Strategy. What about 800
Series Systems? Do we have a single place where we can get an
explanation of ALL HP-UX systems?
What are 800 Series machines? Are they mart of Medical?
8) Do the same rules apply to DOMAIN systems?
We don't support DOMAIN any more. Tell them to buy HP-UX until we come
out with OSF in which case we won't answer any HP-UX questions because
we don't work with obsolete computers.
9) What will our OSF implementation look like? What features will we
have as compared to the competition?
You will learn that AFTER the software is release. Otherwise you might
tell customers and then they will know things we don't know.
10) My girlfriend and I are always fighting over which TV show to watch.
Do you have a suggestion for us?
Well, at least someone has asked a question that makes sense for online.
The consensus here is that each of you should have the right to choose
which shows you want to watch on a particular night. One night, you
choose. The next night, she chooses. Comprimise is important in any
relationship.
11) But we live in different cities and haven't visited each other in
months. What do we do?
In that case, you each choose your show for an hour at a time. You get
7-8PM. She gets 8-9PM. You get 9-10PM. Then reverse it the next night.
12) But I want to watch the NewWave Zone teleclass when it is on. What do I
do?
Ask her to marry you. With a brain like yours, she should divorce you
but she can't do that in most states until you are married.
13) Can you provide competitive performance numbers for our most
important competitors' machines?
Sure. Here they are:
FSY GSY BSY YOY
700 Series 800 Series 900 Series
Workstations Servers Multi-User
X-Performance
relative to a 400 3.4 N/A N/A
Transactions/Second N/A 72.4 N/A
Maximum Users N/A N/A 345
We do not have any information on less important competitors like SUN,
IBM and DEC.
14) My customer has 12 million-line FORTRAN programs. Everything works,
except for the cosine function. What should I tell them?
Tell them to rewrite their programs in C.
15) The latest version of HP-UX doesn't work with the 1.0 version of Lan
Manager/X. Why?
Lan Manager was our strategic direction LAST WEEK.
16) My customers want the 700 Series to support 9 track mag tapes
because they have a lot of old tapes and mag tape was the only industry
standard data exchange medium. What should I tell them?
Tell them to bring us a $30 Million deal and we will think about it.
17) Why isn't the networked Laserjet IIIsi supported on the UNIX
systems.
PC's do much better networking than does UNIX. Why would anyone want to
put a printer on the LAN? The 9600 baud serial connection is much better
for the workstation graphics files. The PC's need the faster LAN
connection to print out their word processing documents. Little PCs need
more printing power than big workstations. And multi-user systems don't
need to do printing at all.
18) Can you explain clients and servers?
Sure. Clients are where the user sits as in Lan Manager clients and NFS
clients. On the other hand, clients are where the programs run as in X
clients. That is pretty simple.
Servers are the new name for waiters and waitresses. We don't use sexist
terms in the computer industry.
19) Can you explain HP's NEWWave Strategy?
Which HP are you referring to? The HP Workstation Strategy, the HP
Multi-User strategy, the HP PC Strategy, the HP Peripheral Group
Strategy, or what? We have more strategies than the competition and our
strategies change faster based on industry standard benchmarks.
20) What about the DN1000?
It is sitting side by side with the Series 500.
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