RE: Windows BSOD vs. AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

Dave,

You make a very valid point about the "uselessness" of a machine that has no
video (WS Controller). If you recall the history of NT3.51 -> NT4.0 you'll
recall a major change that moved the video drivers from user mode (above the
MI) to kernel mode (below the MI). The result was significantly increased
performance AND significantly increased number of crashes. However, it was
decided that a machine with out a screen is useless unless it is a server
and if it is a server why were you mucking around with the video drivers?

The main design constraint on Win95/98 is compatibility. It has to support
bob's 8-bit 300 baud homemade serial card from 1977 while NT's main design
constraint is stability, if bob has such a card and wants to run NT he is
SOL. The result is that 95/98 has quite a few more BSODs then NT/2000. 

I've seen many NT/2000 machines on Compaq and Dell equipment that have
uptimes of well over a year between reboots and then they are rebooted to
install software upgrades. That matched most AS/400 shops. On the other hand
I've see NT/2000 machines running on no-name clones from the local computer
store with memory from a local computer-fair that crash on a weekly basis.
Is this the fault of NT/2000??? I think not.

The 400 is a stable machine BECAUSE IBM controls the hardware. Period!

-Walden

-----Original Message-----
From: Shaw, David [mailto:dshaw@spartan.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 8:54 AM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Windows BSOD vs. AS/400


Mark,

With all due respect, I think you might want to do a little research on how
the hardware and software interact in a "Wintel" system before making such
sweeping generalizations.  It isn't as simple as Microsoft unilaterally
defining Windows API's - many of the hardware interfaces are _below_ the OS
level, and naturally when you have multiple manufacturers defining and
interpreting such interfaces you get huge opportunities for mismatches.  You
mentioned terminals - well, terminals are roughly analogous to monitors.
Workstation controllers are roughly analogous to video cards.  Monitors
typically cause very few problems on Wintel systems, but video cards cause
MANY problems.  If there were a dozen vendors selling workstation
controllers for the /400 (graphical, of course), each trying to push the
envelope in some aspect of price/performance/features, I'll bet we would
have all sorts of problems with them.

Could Windows protect itself better?  Of course - consider that NT/2000 (and
the OS/2 design they're based on) handle these issues a lot more gracefully
than Win 95 and 98.  The OS/400 protection model is even better, but still
not perfect.  I had a machine down twice on V3R1 because of workstation
controller LIC issues.  Certainly OS/400 didn't crash, but just as certainly
the machine was unavailable to the users and therefor nearly useless, just
as a Wintel machine with video driver problems would be.

Dave Shaw
Spartan International, Inc.
Spartanburg, SC

-----Original Message-----
From: M. Lazarus [mailto:mlazarus@ttec.com]

John,

At 7/31/00 09:05 PM -0600, you wrote:

With respect to printer drivers, NO ONE but IBM releases a printer driver
for the 400. Ditto terminals. IBM defines the device types, and supplies the
"drivers". I'm pretty sure that the same can be said for disk and tape
drives.

 As far as printers are concerned, even for the printers that are not
defined by native /400 drivers, we can use WSCST objects to define the
printer to the OS.  No crashes needed.  If the Win OS would provide a good
tape API, then the tape vendors would not have to write at the microcode
level.


Even with a single vendor solution, and the excellent quality control that
we've come to expect from Rochester, the 400 is still not immune to those
types of problems. All you have to do is browse the HIPER alert every
Tuesday morning, and they will become apparent.

 While it's not totally immune, the fixes are created and delivered quickly
and pretty easily. I don't think that could be said as readily about
Windows.

Now, having said all that, I'd like to point out that I'm a huge fan of the
AS/400, and I think that it's the most reliable commercial business machine
available. But I think it's fair to say that it's reliability is due, in
large part, to the fact that it's hardware is closely matched to the
software, and that a single vendor is providing all of the critical
microcode (or "drivers"). Things might be markedly different if you were
able to buy an Adaptec SCSI card for the box, and had to load an "OS/400
driver" from their website.

 What I'm saying that the hardware API specs can and should be well defined
by MS for vendors to tap into.  Then if they go outside the spec, tough
luck.  On the flip side, MS s/b open to hardware innovation and work w/ the
vendors to support the new hardware as quickly as possible.

 -mark 
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