TJ News Archived by TJ

VS INSTALLED BASE STABILIZED

Revenues actually on the rise

EDITORIAL

May 07, 2002 (Junker) – Word has reached us from several sources that the decline in the VS installed base appears to have levelled off. It seems that the weak-kneed have been shaken out and that the installed base now consists of sites who are happy to continue getting value from their VS systems and sites who recognize that replacing a productive VS is not always a simple thing. The very long term prospects for the VS remain negative, but the medium term picture has improved significantly and there is even a possibility that Getronics will be able to make a renewed commitment to support of the VS line.

Improved VS revenues may derive from the post-Y2K conclusion at many sites that they will indeed be using the VS for some time to come and that they may as well loosen their pursestrings a bit and upgrade processors and configurations to keep up with expanding workloads.

While there are still many older VS7000-class machines in operation, the cost-effective models these days are:

  • VS18950 (FAST rating: 6300, released 1999)
    • Fastest VS to date
    • Capacity to 1,000 users or more
    • Up to 2 GB of main memory
    • Improved GETMEM with OS 7.54
    • Large format (VS9000-style cabinet)
    • 1.7 times faster than the VS16850
    • 2.5 times faster than the VS12550/12650
    • 4.2 times faster than the VS7380/8×80/10100
    • 5.5 times faster than the VS6230
    • 8.4 times faster than the VS300
    • 12 times faster than the VS5x60
  • VS6780 (FAST rating: 4250, released 2000)
    • VS18000 chipset packaged for a VS6000
    • Faster than the VS16850
    • 1.7 times faster than the VS12550/12650
    • 2.1 times faster than the VS6230T (Turbo)
    • 2.8 times faster than the VS7380/8×80/10100
    • More than 3.5 times faster than the VS6230
    • More than 5 times faster than the VS300
    • More than 8 times faster than the VS5x60
  • VS6760 (FAST rating: 2950, released 2000)
    • VS18000 chipset packaged for a VS6000
    • Faster than the VS12000 models
    • 1.4 times faster than the VS6230T (Turbo)
    • 1.9 times faster than the VS7380/8×80/10100
    • More than 2.5 times faster than the VS6230
    • Four times faster than the VS300
    • More than 5.5 times faster than the VS5x60
  • VS6230T (Turbo) (FAST rating: 2025, released 1994)
    • CP12 chipset packaged for a VS6000
    • 1.35 times faster than the VS7380/8×80/10100
    • 1.75 times faster than the VS6230
    • 2.7 times faster than the VS300
    • Almost 4 times faster than the VS5x60

 

[the News item that was here is being revised]

NEW VS MODELS ANNOUNCED

Multiple announcements cover new hardware, software

(Added June 13: Special Report on new VS models)

May 30, 2000 (Junker) – Getronics announced two new VS models just before midday today. The multiple announcements introduced the VS6760 and VS6780 models as well as the Open Source release of VS Web Server and the introduction of a high performance RAID 7 solution for VS imaging systems.

Fast new VS hardware

Getronics has released two additions to the VS6000 family. Each is substantially faster than the VS6230T (Turbo), formerly the top of the VS6000 line. Each comes with 128 MB of memory. They are available as board upgrades to VS5000/6000 systems or as complete new VS system units

 

New Model FAST Rating
VS6760 2850
VS6780 4250

The new VS models extend the range of the VS6000 family well into the high end of VS processing capacity. Getronics warns, though, that these models should primarily be considered as extending the reach of the VS5000 and VS6000, not as replacments for large VS models. In the chart below, the new models are in light blue, the large VS models are in green, and the pre-existing VS5000 and VS6000 models are in dark blue. Use your browser’s right-click features to display the chart at full size, scrollable in your browser window.

VS Processor Speeds
RIGHT-CLICK AND VIEW IMAGE TO SEE AT FULL SIZEI have been fortunate enough to have had a VS6760 and 6780 board here for evaluation these past few weeks. The Live VS Web Server is running on the VS6780 right now. You may view my Special Report on the VS6700 here.

Open Source VS Web Server available for download

It has happened! The good VS people of Getronics released the VS Web Server today for free download. Source files will be posted as soon as all the Open Source license text has been added.

WIIS High Performance Storage Sub-system

Getronics’ High Performance Storage Subsystem employing RAID 7 technology has been released for use with WIIS, the VS imaging technology.

Get the straight scoop from the Getronics Website

All these announcements and additional links are available for viewing at the Getronics VS Web Center site.

 

VS WEB SERVER TO RELEASE AS OPEN SOURCE

Stunning decision breaks new ground

Apr 7, 2000 (Junker) – In a move that will take veteran Wang-watchers by complete surprise, Getronics has decided to release the VS Web Server as an open source product, to be freely downloadable by VS customers. Binaries and source code will be available at the official VS Web site as well as at several others. A formal announcement is expected this month.

For the first time in the 22-year history of the VS, customers who choose to do so will be able to modify and compile a strategic VS software product. Enhancements, fixes and add-ons contributed by customers will be considered for inclusion in the “official” distribution, thus providing customers the opportunity to directly participate in product development.

While VS Web Server is not the first VS product to be bundled or made available at no additional charge, it is the first strategic VS product to be released with source code. In recent years several formerly extra-charge products such as EVAS and IWSCORE have been bundled with the VS Operating System, but never before has a VS product been freely released to the VS community in the manner of Linux and other open source software. The open source model calls for user modifications to fall under the same free distribution as the base product, thus ensuring that the product remains free and that all fixes and enhancements can become available to all users of the product.

A revised data sheet describing the open source VS Web Server is available at:

The specifics of the VS Web Server release will become available this month. The primary Web site to watch for the release is the official VS site, which runs on a Getronics VS at Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Several other sites will probably have ongoing news and likely will offer the downloads when they become available:

Note that www.wangvs.com, announced two months ago as the official VS Web site, is becoming www.vswebcenter.com in keeping with the corporate name change. The wangvs.com domain will remain active for some time for the convenience of visitors.

 

EDITORIAL

Thomas Junker

I extend my hearfelt congratulations to the VS management at Getronics for taking the brave and momentous step of embracing Open Source for the VS. This is a radical new course for such a traditional fixture of the computer industry. Everyone with an interest in the VS should sit up and take notice that things are going to be different.

A brave step

It is a brave step because the VS has always lived in the proprietary, value-priced world of closed, unbundled software that became the industry model in the wake of IBM’s forced unbundling so many years ago. It cannot be easy for traditional manufacturers and software vendors such as Wang, now Getronics, to contemplate giving software away for free when their revenue model has for so long been based on charging for software. Despite the growing popularity of open source software, the fundamental question of how to make money and stay in business while giving software away remains without clear answers, a model still undergoing evolution and discovery. It is not for faint hearts.

Breaking new ground

It is a momentous step because it opens a number of new doors for the VS community and for Getronics itself. When software is “closed,” the source code available only to developers at the one and only vendor, while quality may be very well controlled almost everthing else is constrained by the host of factors that hamper any centralized activity. The relatively new and still developing model of open source software, in which user organizations have access to the source and can, if they choose, modify it to fix problems or add new functionality, allows a vibrant synergy to come into being, usually with beneficial results to all concerned. The open source literature is replete with examples of rapid user community resolution of crises such as security holes in open source unix Internet servers being fixed and the fix propagated worldwide in 24 hours, while closed-source vendors such as Microsoft have sometimes taken weeks, months, even years to issue fixes for the same problems affecting their software. Users of open source software have an independence to address issues that makes the software they use more flexible and valuable to them than comparable closed source software. To benefit from this additional value it isn’t at all necessary that every end user organization modify the source or even compile the packages for themselves — the fact that they have that option has value, and the availability of fixes and enhancements from other sites who choose to put some effort into the source code has value.

The dilemma

The fundamental dilemma of open source software is simply this: if you give away your products, how can you make any money? The answer seems to be that the situation is not quite as simple as that unless you are a software-only vendor with only a single product. The reality is that products interact with each other, and that many players not only have more than one product, they have different kinds of products. Giving away one product may greatly enhance the market for their other products, may multiply the deployment of a product that has ties to other, revenue-producing products and services, and may generate entirely different kinds of business for the vendor. It also fosters third-party opportunities, something that is as important in computers and software as it is in the autombile field. How useful would cars be if there were nothing in the automotive market other than car manufacturers and buyer/drivers?

What does Getronics get out of this?

If a company makes only thumb tacks and gives them away free, how would they make money? In the case of Getronics, the VS is a small portion of their overall business. This was true even before the purchase of Wang Global by Getronics, as Wang moved increasingly from its origins as a computer system manufacturer to a network-oriented services company. It is even the case that the larger portion of the VS revenues are from service these days, not from equipment sales. Yet where VS systems exist, and especially where VS systems thrive and do well, Getronics has an array of opportunities to sell not only the service of maintaining the VS, but to sell all their other services as well. For this reason, anything Getronics does to make it easier for customers to get more value from their VS systems and to keep them in place longer and more cost effectively benefits Getronics as well as the VS users themselves. At the same time, the more Getronics charges for VS products, the more rapidly the VS market will dwindle. That is precisely the scenario in which open source works to lift everyone on the rising tide of wider deployment and utility value in the larger contexts of customer and vendor businesses.

Wider deployment = everyone wins

Customers should always be interested in seeing the products they like and use be successful — success ensures that the favored products will continue to be there and be supported for them. Smart customers, then, just as smart vendors, should prefer to see their trading partners succeed and be healthy, because it enhances the stability and utility value of their trading relationships and, therefore, of their own businesses.

Clearly, VS Web Server will see wider use as a free, open source product than it would have as an extra-charge product. It is not difficult to imagine the scenario of VS sites for whom the free availability of VS Web Server will make the difference between deploying it and not deploying it. Neither is it difficult to see that VS survival depends in no small part on the level of participation of the VS in modern networking, including intranet and Internet funcationality. Removing the largest obstacle to modernizing a VS — the traditional costs of adding or upgrading vendor software products — will go a long way to easing the evolution of the VS in the changing landscape of IT. Customers who can avoid or postpone a forced VS migration decision point will benefit because migrations are horrendously expensive, terribly disruptive, and don’t always succeed. Meanwhile, any increase in the longevity of the VS in the field will help Getronics through maintenance revenues and through opportunities to promote other products and services to sites successfuly using the VS.

Ultimately, the long term prospects for the VS depend entirely on the VS market continuing to have the energy that drives new developments and breakthroughs. It is not as simple as ever newer, faster VS models, though that remains an active factor, the VS already having surpassed at least two severely premature and inaccurate pronouncements of its demise. The real possibilities for the future of the VS encompass a wide range of potential developments from inexpensive unix boxes that help the VS become more accessible to networked users and other systems, to unix boxes running VS applications (already being done), to metamorphosis of the VS over time into something quite different than the traditional VS we have known for 22 years. Anything from chip industry breakthroughs to the results produced by dedicated lone developers poking into the mysteries of host-to-host SCSI transports could change the VS equation for the better despite the apparent decline in VS population in recent years. The essential ingredient, though, is that there be signs of life in the VS community. I believe that the release of VS Web Server as a free, open source product is the most significant move that Wang/Getronics has ever made to give the VS community its own, self-determined heartbeat and the motivation to take an active hand in the survival of the VS — empowerment, if you will.

Thus, I am not embarrassed to say that this move is one I hadn’t anticipated or even dreamt possible, but one I applaud with unreserved enthusiasm. While it is uncharted territory for the company, I believe it marks a turning point of great and positive significance. I for one will do everything possible to help make this a success. I hope other VS users will view it in the same light and find in it renewed cause for optimism and forward progress.

OFFICIAL VS WEB SITE OPENS

New VS-only Web site runs on a VS

Feb 8, 2000 (Junker) – Getronics (Wang) gave the OK today to publicize their official VS Web site. Running on a genuine VS, the site contains product information, data sheets, and various other VS information. Rumor has it that they are giving something away to the first 100 visitors to register.

Surf on over to: www.vswebcenter.com

VS WEB SERVER 1.00 TO SHIP

Strategic product offers VS connectivity

Dec 28, 1999 (Junker) – The long-awaited VS Web Server finally became a Wang product this month after the final version for release as 1.00 was turned over to Wang by developer Thomas Junker of Houston, Texas. The last pre-release beta has been running at three sites since June, 1999: two in the U.S. and one in New Zealand. In addition, Wang has been running the beta on an internal system.

The initial release supports CGI (Common Gateway Interface executables tied to URLs), an HTML Merge Layer, automatic natural language document selection and delivery based on browser preferences, IP filtering, and other features not originally committed for the first release.

The strategic positioning of VS Web Server stems from its facility to deliver all customary Web document types as well as VS print files to ubiquitous, generic desktop Web browsers, and from its gateway facility that provides access by TCP/IP client software to VS executables and thereby to VS databases and files. PACE databases may now be made accessible through straightforward PACE HLI programs that conform to the VS CGI specification.

Version 1.00 of VS Web Server is available for viewing at www.tjunker.com, where versions have been presented all through the development cycle since September, 1997. The project began officially in April, 1998.

Thomas Junker, who developed VS Web Server under an agreement with Wang Global, plans to experiment with a “turbo” enhancement to the product using a small unix box to provide TCP/IP front-end services.

WANG GLOBAL SOLD TO EUROPEAN NETWORKING COMPANY

Wang reconfirms support for the VS

May 4, 1999 (Junker)(Rev 3) – VS customers awoke today to the stunning news that Wang Global is being purchased by Getronics, NV of Amsterdam, one of the largest computer services companies in Europe. The takeover, supported by the Wang Global board, will create a $5 billion “networked technology services and business solutions company,” according to Wang’s announcement. Getronics is less than half the size of Wang Global, measured in annual sales.

Customers using Wang’s long-lived VS computer systems will soon receive reassurances of continued support and commitment to the VS. “This doesn’t affect the VS,” according to Bob Trottier, V.P. of VS Engineering, in email to us this afternoon. “We remain committed to supporting [the VS].” Trottier indicates that Wang Gobal CEO Joe Tucci recently sent a letter to prime VS accounts assuring them of support through 2007 and beyond in what was probably the strongest statement in favor of continued VS support made to date. He continued in a later email, “Getronics, like Wang, is in the service business, and ongoing support of our legacy business is a service we really value.”

News of the takeover agreement comes on the heels of Wang’s March 22nd announcement of the new 1,000-user VS18000 system, the fastest in the over-20-year history of the VS. Recent statements by Wang Global executives indicate that additional models of the VS18000 will be forthcoming, replacing comparable models of the earlier VS16000.

The Wang Global Website was off the air all day yesterday, May 3. It was back on the air today with no explanation, and with no news of the sale agreement on its press release page. (As of May 5, both the Wang Global and Getronics NV Websites were back on the air with news of the takeover agreement)

VS18000 Officially Announced!

New OS, VS Web Server, SCSI IOC too

March 22, 1999 (Junker) – Wang’s newest, fastest VS was announced this morning for immediate delivery worldwide. Called the VS18000 Model 1950, the new CPU is 70% faster than the former top performer, the VS16850, first shipped in early 1996. Also announced were an upcoming 2,000-user, 2,000-device operating system, OS 7.54, the groundbreaking VS Web Server, still in beta test, and a new caching SCSI controller with increased cache memory, designed for today’s large disks.

In addition to being some 70 times faster than the original 1977 VS80, the VS18000 raises main memory capacity to a new level of 2 gigabytes on the CPU board. Greater speed and physical memory call for expanding fundamental limitations in the OS, and Wang has been addressing that, too. OS 7.54, in the works during the past year and expected to be delivered shortly, significantly improves how global system memory, “GETMEM,” is handled, making more of it available to provide space for supporting greater numbers of users, devices, files, and file buffers. While the levels of users and devices that can be supported by any VS and OS version vary depending on specific conditions of each site, the hard OS limits are being pushed out to 2,000 users and devices from the present 1,000.

While most people close to the VS don’t expect to see many, if any sites actually configured for more than 1,000 users and devices, technical and practical reasons having to do with site assignment and administration of device number ranges and re-configurability call for the new limits. There is also some possibility that future enhancements of certain devices may encourage customers to once again push the upper limits of VS configurability.

The new VS18000 successfully completed beta trials in recent months while being subjected to arduous endurance tests in Wang’s own headquarters VS systems, including the North American service call dispatch system. Everyone who has seen and tested the new CPU and the several customers who already have it installed and running seem well pleased with it. Once again, Wang seems to have delivered on its promises and to have provided its VS customers with yet another new, higher performance ceiling.

Like its predecessor, the VS18000 CPU can be installed as a board upgrade in all the post-1985 large-cabinet VS systems except the VS1000 series. Upgrade of suitably qualified systems is nominally a 1-hour action with no adverse effect whatsoever on existing system or application software. The board goes in and the system runs faster.

CP18 Running Wang’s North American Call Dispatch

January 6, 1999 (Junker) – The new CP18, reportedly at least 50% faster than the CP16 and still climbing, is now in silicon and being given a shakedown in Wang’s North American call dispatch system. This step, something of a tradition at Wang, marks the transition of the new processor from purely laboratory testing to use in a real-world system. Field beta tests will follow this phase, leading to announcement and availability, probably this quarter.

Processor speed, while largely a function of the chip design and size, is also affected by the Central Processor microcode. For this reason, processor speed can continue to improve after the design has been committed to silicon, as engineers tune the microcode to squeeze a percent here, a percent there, out of the new chip.

CP18 sets several new records for the VS, not the least of which is speed. Main memory is also increased, with a new upper limit of 2 GB. The new companion OS for the CP18 will support the larger memory sizes as well as push the device and user limits beyond 999 for the first time ever. CP18, probably to be designated as the VS18000, perhaps the VS18950, clearly takes the VS well into the mainframe class.

Advanced CPU chip design has also produced a curious effect: With robust pipelining, decision look-ahead, operand prefetch and other features, the CP18 executes most macroinstructions in a single microcycle, erasing the speed advantages commonly believed to be held by RISC processors. At the same time that the VS processor has been achieving virtual macroinstruction parity with microcycle speeds, RISC processors have had to yield back much of the speed advantage of their variable instruction lengths by being forced to “normalize” instructions on their way through a multistage pipeline. The long and emotional RISC era has thus come full circle, with CISC processors once again the heavy players.

The VS instruction set includes such things as string moves and compares, packed decimal arithmetic, byte, halfword and fullword binary arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, and linked list operations. The VS is a virtual memory stack machine that makes heavy use of microprogrammable controllers and peripherals.

Although Wang has given no indication thus far, some of us are hopeful that RSF may yet undergo another generational advancement. Gigabit or faster RSF would complement the CP18 very nicely, allowing very robust VS clustering of large, monolithic applications.

Access to Wang Magazine closed by new owners

September 16, 1998 (Junker) – Fifteen years of work building the independent mainstay publication of the Wang world were undone in five months by purchaser American Visions. Access to Wang, known to the entire worldwide VS community, and Network Solutions, its sister magazine, were closed last Tuesday and remaining staff laid off. American Visions had earlier liquidated the Austin offices of Access to Wang, but had retained two of the staff to continue the magazine in its new, mostly electronic format. Unfortunately, the Internet resources and expertise American Visions had said it was bringing to the magazine never materialized, and the electronic version went on line late and with little evidence of design or Web expertise, seeming to be almost an afterthought.

It’s unfortunate that the people at American Visions had to select the one and only publication serving the VS community for their experiment in dabbling at something they evidently didn’t understand and had little commitment to pursue. Whatever their original intentions, they succeeded only in destroying the print publication symbol of the VS market.

August, though, saw the launch of Don Winterhalter’s hotvs.com, an entirely electronic magazine exclusively devoted to the Wang VS community. Word is, too, that something new may be launched from the ashes of Access to Wang.

Wang Acquires Olivetti Olsy, Changes Name to Wang Global

March 28, 1998 (Junker) – In a major merger/acquisition, Wang finalized its previously announced purchase of Olivetti’s Olsy Group on March 18, creating a new, combined company with $3.6 billion in annual revenues. Wang had already adopted a new name, Wang Global, in anticipation of the move first announced on March 2. The new Wang Global employs more than 21,000 professionals and has a presence in over 40 countries, more than doubling Wang’s size in terms of staff and revenue.

The deal, valued at about $390 million, consists of Wang’s acquisition from Olivetti of 100% of Group Olsy in exchange for $70 million in cash plus common stock equivalents, stock appreciation rights, an “earnout” payable in the year 2000 subject to certain growth, and the election of two Directors nominated by Olivetti.

Wang also successfully negotiated an expansion of its committed lines of credit from $225 million to $500 million in order to support development of the new combined company.

Olsy specializes in IT solutions and services, and contributed 60% of Olivetti’s overall revenues. It provides application development and systems integration, network integration and management services and distributed IT management services. Wang has lately offered network and desktop integration and services. Both companies were Microsoft and Cisco partners, as is the new combined company.

As part of the move, Wang also takes on a 19.9% stake in Olivetti Ricerca (Olivetti Research), the Italian consortium supplying R&D services to both the IT and telecom sectors. According to the announcement, Olivetti Ricerca will be the R&D center of the new combined entity.

No information is presently available on what effect, if any, the merger will have on Wang’s VS customers or projects already underway for new software and hardware to support the VS installed base.

New VS to be Announced in 1998

March 28, 1998 (Junker) – There are persistent but as yet unconfirmed rumors on the Wang VS grapevine that Joe Tucci, Wang CEO, recently signed off on production of the latest new VS model, probably to be called the VS18000. A formal announcement of the product and its availability is expected later this year, perhaps around the time of InterACTION 98.

The new processor, the CP18, was confirmed to have been under development at last Fall’s InterACTION 97 conference. It is expected to offer nearly double the performance of the present top-of-the-line VS, the VS16850. That would seem to put it squarely over the 1,000-user mark, requiring significant modification of the VS Operating System, which is presently limited to 1,000 devices of all kinds. Work on such expansion and other aspects of the VS OS is also rumored to be under way.

[envelope] Thomas Junker

Wang To Support VS At Least Ten More Years

Nov 19, 1997 (Junker) – In an October 30, 1997 letter to all VS customers, Robert E. Curtis, President, Wang Multi-vendor Service, wrote:

“…we fully expect to support the VS product family with quality hardware and software contract support through at least the year 2007.”

Mr. Curtis also reiterated Wang’s commitment to continued VS processor development, operating system enhancement, network connectivity and support for Year 2000.

The letter stressed the importance of Year 2000 readiness and was accompanied by a detailed presentation of Wang’s product and service offerings for Year 2000 compliance. All VS systems first delivered after 1987 can be upgraded with Year 2000 compliant software:

 

  • VS 5000 and VS 6000 including VS 6230
  • VS 300, VS 7000, VS 8000 and VS 9000 models
  • VS 10000 models and the VS 12000 Model 550
  • VS 12000 Models
  • VS 16000 Models

 

Clear upgrade paths to Year 2000 compatible models are available for transitioning older systems:

 

  • VS 50 and VS 80
  • VS 85, VS 90 and VS 100
  • VS 5, 15, 25, and 45
  • VS 6, 65 and 75E

 

Wang’s Century Software Package (CSP) is available at no additional charge to current, up-to-date Wang Software Maintenance customers, and includes:

 

  • Wang’s new Y2K compliant VS Operating System release 7.53.00
  • EVAS and Dynamic Reconfiguration to support larger user populations
  • SAM and Site Manager to help you manage your system and
  • IWSCORE, Wang’s VS based Server task to facilitate desktop integration with your VS.

 

Wang intends to make OS 7.53 the single supported OS well before 2000 (and for good reason) and is encouraging all customers to move up to that level by sweetening the deal with these new, bundled resources. I for one am greatly relieved to see the first major evidence that Wang is recognizing the value of bundling basic features that help the VS deliver on its potential.

DOWNLOAD the documents:

 

 

 

I’m back from InterACTION 97

Oct 12, 1997 (Junker) – Whew! What a week! InterACTION 97 was a whirlwind of activity. I spent a full day recuperating and am still catching up on things that got behind in my absence. This is the first chance I’ve had to even touch these web pages, and it will be several days more before I can finish updating them to reflect news of the show.

The VS Web Server exhibit went well and received a lot of interest. I also presented the concept in a Friday morning session that was very well attended. I am now launching into developing the production web server to handle multiple connections.

I should mention here, for those who may not know of this, that Wang now offers multihost RAID 7 in the form of the High Performance Storage Subsystem product, a high-reliability, configurable RAID subsystem that can serve not only VS systems but any computers using industry-standard SCSI disk drives. HPSS features automatic failover to hot spares, automatic reformat and rebuild of failed drives, hot swappable drives and mixing of drive sizes. HPSS technology pools large amounts of disk space and allows the pool to be partitioned into logical drives which may be assigned to one or more host computers of any type. In a migration scenario it then becomes possible to reassign disk space to the replacement platform as applications migrate over time. At the conclusion of migration the HPSS does the same job of protecting disk data for the new system that it does originally for the VS.

Wang also has a variety of current and new products that will take me some time to detail, but which include a 9, 4, 2 and 1gb disks, a 5gb 1/4-inch tape drive backward compatible with 150mb tapes, a RAID 1 subsystem, VS/PC connectivity products for Windows 95 and NT, an NTLOC product, Datashadow with hot swappable drives, and server configurations of VS6110, 6120, 6230 and 6230T called Century Server that have a common 10-slot, 8-bay package and come preloaded with the Year 2000 OS.

Wang CEO Joe Tucci Reaffirms Commitment to VS

Oct 12, 1997 (Junker) – In his presentation at the Wednesday dinner, Wang CEO Joe Tucci stated in no uncertain terms that Wang continues to stand behind the VS. “We are committed to the VS, and you can take that to the bank!” Mark those words in your calendars – they were spoken at 8:06pm on October 8, 1997. Mr. Tucci went on to explain that as long as VS customers need and demand VS systems, Wang will continue to provide and support them. He also said that users can count on a follow-on to the VS16000.

Another, Faster VS in the Works

Oct 12, 1997 (Junker) – It’s no longer a rumor. Although it is not yet called a VS18000, there is a new CP18 processor in development. If market interest justifies packaging and releasing the new machine, expect something better than three times the performance of the VS12650 and almost twice the performance of the VS16850, a greater leap forward than was accomplished when the VS16850 was delivered in early 1996. I had kept my fingers crossed for a definitive announcement at InterACTION 97, but this project probably didn’t begin in time for very conservative Wang to announce a product yet. Joe Tucci did promise that follow-on, though…

I’ve received further information that clarifies that the new processor, if Wang sees sufficient interest, will be in the way of a board upgrade to the VS16000 and is probably a year away from announcement. The VS16000 models will be current for at least that long, and today remain the processors of choice for customers reaching the limits of any of the older, large-cabinet VS processors (300, 7XXX, 8XXX, 9XXX, 12XXX).

A Web server for the VS? YESSSSS!

Sep 15, 1997 (Junker) – You never thought you’d be able to point a web browser at your VS and pull up real, live web pages, did you? If this interests you, email me about VS Web Server or Subscribe now to the VS Web Server Mail List. A demo is available for viewing at irregular times on the Internet.

Go to demoI am looking forward to inaugurating 24-hour by seven day VS presence on the Internet, perhaps before December.

New E-mail List for Wang VS Discussion

Sep 4, 1997 (Junker) – Subscribe now to be in touch with other VS users for discussion and Q & A. I’ll do my best to answer what comes up and in time we should have a range of experienced VS people participating.

Possible ODBC SQL support for VS

Jun 20, 1997 (Junker) – Information Builders (IBI) has an Enterprise Data Access (EDA) product that may be released for VS. Those of you with an interest in ODBC SQL access to the VS at the client level may wish to contact IBI to express your interest.

VS16000 a great success

Updated Oct 12, 1997 (Junker) – 78 VS16000’s have been shipped worldwide as of October, 1997. This significantly exceeds Wang’s original projections.

In October, 1995, Wang announced a new computer, the VS16000. It was to be 200% the speed of the top-end 8000 processor and 150% the speed of the VS12650. Delivery was estimated to be June, 1996. In fact the first VS16000’s were beta tested in early 1996 and production versions were installed well before June.

Two models were offered: the VS16750 with a speed essentially equal to the VS12650, and the VS16850, the model that fulfilled the promise of twice the speed of the 8X80 and 1.5 times the speed of 12650 processors.

Most impressive, though, is that the VS16000 processors were made available as board upgrades for the range of large systems from VS300 through VS12000 (with the exception of the VS10000 cabinet). In the case of the VS300 I’m not aware of any other computer system in existence that was designed well enough when it was released in 1985 that it could be board upgraded in 1996 for a five-fold increase in processing capacity. The new systems are also available in their own cabinets, similar in appearance to the VS12000 models. (VS300 systems may require a few other components to be upgraded to be able to accept the VS16000 CPU)

Year 2000 a reality…

Sep, 1997 (Junker) – The VS operating system is Year 2000 capable and already operating in the field. From what I hear all optional Wang add-on products are ready for Year 2000.

Replacement for DISKUSE Utility

Aug 12, 1997 (Junker) – Wang now has a new disk space display utility that can show disk usage for up to 256 drives and handles device numbers greater than 255. It goes beyond the old DISKUSE (which no longer works if you’ve moved up to 2gb+ drives or try to run it from workstation numbers over 255) and gives you push-button sorting of drives by volume name, percent full, device number, files open, blocks allocated and blocks free. Options allow anchoring the system volume at the top of the list or floating it according to the sort presently in effect. It works. I know. I wrote it. Contact Wang about this product. If you have any difficulty obtaining it, email me about Disk Utilization Utility and I’ll pass your request on to someone I know at Wang.