🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8810051413.aa10119@accuvax.nwu.edu> CHOJNACKI@VAXMFG.TECH.NWU.EDU (Bob Chojnacki) writes:
>To all those PRO 350/380 owners:
>
>We have about 17 or so PROs and they are connected to a VAX running VMS.  About
>a week ago a post-doc said he was having problems with the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT
>linker (I do not know if it is different than the RSX linker we have on our
>VAX.)  So I thought I would call up DEC and ask them to send us a new version
>of the PRO-HOST TOOL-KIT for our VAX (we upgraded to VMS 5.0, or so).  The DEC
>salesman said that that product was discontinued about a year ago and as of
>January 1, 1989, DEC will no longer support hardware nor software items related
>to PROS (or something like that.)  Has anyone else heard anything about this?
>
>Confused and left with a bunch of PRO's:
>
>Bob

There was an article in Digital Review a little less than a year ago that
stated this.  Having worked with Pro's a couple of years ago on a CIM project
at an aerospace contractor and being very unsatisfied with bugs, support, etc.
we could smell them phasing out this line.  A support person once told me
that the 350 model had stopped being built as of October about 2 or 3 years
ago.  I think what little inventory that DEC has of these machines is being
used for supplying bootstrap devices for their 8x00 machines.  If your people
plan on doing any new development or need new functionality, I would highly
recommend that you make migration plans to new hardware.  If you want to get
rid of the Pro's, perhaps you could sell them for scrap parts to sites where
they're using 8x00 machines or use them as doorstops somewhere :-).  Also,
I recall that when we got an upgrade on P/OS to 2.0, the bug fixes in the
software exposed what appeared to be some hardware bugs and compatibility
differences between 380 and 350 hardware that were previously undetected by 
their old OS software.  I don't recall the specifics, but if you have old
350's, there's a good chance that you have these hardware bugs as well.  2.0
was also designed more to run on 380's than it was on 350's as the 350's were
already starting to be phased out then.

Good Luck,

Mike Neff
mneff@sun.com or ..!sun!pitstop!neff
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Disclaimer:  The statements here in this article are completely my own, and
do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, Sun Microsystems.