24 Jan
2021
24 Jan
'21
10:22 p.m.
So I never liked Apollos much. What I was referring to
was Apollo's claim
that their token-ring network performed better for large numbers of nodes.
And they were correct. However, they didn't consider the eventually
invention of switches that solved the problem.
We worked with Apollo for a few years before they got absorbed into HP.
I had a DN10000 wthat we used to use. Amusingly, the window system
was some X variant with the Apollo's idea of a GUI wrapped around it.
When I fired up the Motif Window Manager I found that the three little
windows at the bottom of the screen got their own Motif border.
The DN10000 came with a great set of documentation in five volumes to
describe all aspects of the hardware. I really needed volume 3 which
covered the graphics system. After much hunting around (even by some
senior Apollo engineers) everybody came to the conclusion that Volume 3
never got written. The other cute thing is that when you opened the
latchless gull wing doors on the thing it powered off. I had to tape
signs on the thing warning people not to open the thing casually.
A few years after HP shutdown the whole Apollo domain thing, I was
visiting an FAA facility and they showed me this "brand new system they
just got in." It was essentially the system that eventually powered
things like flightaware.com. It was running on the new obsolete DN300.
The other humerous (to me at least) was when we visited the factory,
they listed my bosses title as "Present" on the agenda. We're not sure
what Steve did, but he was always there.