Talk:Apollo Computer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Merge Request
Perhaps this node should be called "Apollo computers, Inc" instead. -- mace
There are separate "Apollo Computers" and "Apollo Computer" articles. These ought to be merged. Dyl 12:55, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
I agree this needs to be fixed. The main article should be kept under whatever the actual name of the company was. If it was Apollo Computer, then Apollo Computers should have a redirect, or vice versa. It's nonsensical to click on a link to Apollo Computer, be redirected to Apollo Computers, and have the article be about Apollo Computer again. -- Kadin2048 20:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Unmatched sysadmin needs?
and low sysadmin-to-machine ratio that is still unmatched
I seem to recall that GM ran a HUGE distributed network of NeXT machines from a department consisting of two people. Much of this was due to NetInfo. I find it difficult to believe the Apollo was better. Maury 22:08, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
>>> I worked at Apollo for 6 years and never knew if we had sys admins, if we did. I also never had a password the whole time.
[edit] Decline and Fall?
This whole article is kind of sophomoric, and a little dated. It's true that Sun basically destroyed Apollo but the question is why did customers like Computervision choose Sun equipment and not Apollo equipment? I think it had more to do with Sun's willingness to open up its system and sell boards and basically commodity software (Unix) when Apollo was still selling closed systems running proprietary software. The article makes it sounds like Sun products were more innovative, which is at best debatable (and in my opinion simply not true).
Also, this is the first I've ever heard of a dress code at Apollo (it's possible that Vanderslice introduced something like that in corporate offices, but I don't know), and I can't think of "many" engineers who left for any reason.
[edit] Dress code and Sysadmins
I worked in Engineering 1983-1988 and can verify that we never had a dress code.
NeXT may have been easier to administer (I don't know) but it came along later so is not relevant to the Sun vs Apollo comparison.
We didn't really have sysadmins, but we had a small staff that kept the network infrastructure going. I think there were three people supporting several hundred engineers.--Rees11 16:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Not that anyone cares anymore, but...
I removed a short paragraph about the Apollo User Interface being difficult to use (something about hidden control characters). I always thought the Apollo DM was entirely obvious and intuitive (unlike say, a Macintosh which I find utterly baffling to this day). -Tom Gross (Apollo 1985-1990).
[edit] Unreferenced
This article is largley unreferenced (one wallstreet article from the 1980's doesn't cut it); tag added appropriately. I also have a problem with some of the claims in this article, such as proprietary token-ring network. IBM was a huge proponent of token ring back in the 80's and early 90's -- it was by no means proprietary, unless the article means a different token implementation entirely (which should be explained, if so). Anyone familiar enough to help cleanup? /Blaxthos 07:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Apollo token ring was different from IBM, although both were based on the earlier Cambridge token ring. It was indeed what we would now call proprietary, in that it was not well documented enough for anyone else to implement compatible hardware, and probably protected by patents. I don't have the time or inclination to track down references and re-write this article, but if anyone else does, I have a list of source material here: University of Michigan Apollo Archive: papers Rees11 16:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] One individual?
The article says: "In 1988 the company incurred large losses in currency speculation, apparently due to the trading activities of one individual", and references John Markoff's 1988 NYT article.
I read through that article, and it's possible I'm missing something, but I see nothing of the sort mentioned there. The only similarity is a remark that "Last year, the company ran into financial problems because of mistakes related to its foreign currency trading." But that would make it a 1987 loss, right?, and there's no word that it was due to "one individual". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.170.62 (talk) 23:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
