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Session 1313, Minutes Page 2 August 16, 1982 using TI systems in one way or another. He said that even though a study of the sys- tem had been going on for about six months, he and other councilmembers were not aware of it. However, the study did not consider anything other than the recommended TI system, and he felt a mistake had been made in not consulting with other manufactur- ers. He pointed out that the study made no reference to a system described in the TI manual on the 990 series (issued in October, 1981), the Distributed Network Operating System (DNOS), which was designed to offset the limitations of the 990 mini-computer, the one the City was presently using. He said DNOS would give upgraded capabilities to the Finance Department which it says it urgently needed, and it would give the City a kind of open-ended expansion which it does not now have. When inquiry was made about DNOS, it was referred to as something not available. Mr. Levy said that may be true, but no one had been able to give him definitive information. After speaking with several disinterested experts in the computer field and reading the literature, he was convinced that DNOS would do precisely what the City needed, plus a great deal more, with probably a five year expansion capability. He said it might not be wise to rush into the purchase immediately, until it has been proven conclusively, and the question remained as to whether the critical nature of the City's problems with over- load were such that it could not afford to wait several months to see if this more viable solution was available to the City at a cost probably not exceeding $40,000, instead of $95,000. He said it was easy and expedient to accept the administration recommendation, but it was probably not the best thing to do, since he thought the new system would be just as limiting as the old. He said he could not vote for the recommendation, even though he would not try to obstruct it, because he felt the City would not be doing the right thing. Mr. Adams asked exactly what the DNOS system did. Mr. Levy said it was a friendly interface with the 990 Series DX10 and was designed specifically to counter the limi- tations of the DX10. Reading from the manual, he said the DNOS system was designed to be merged with the 990 Series DX10, and it featured the capability of supporting many more terminals than formerly available on any 990 series; an accounting function which provided accounting information on the use of system resources; improved air and termination messages which may be edited; a foundation for future networking re- quirements; and a number of other desirable features. The system was a multi-program- ming disk base mini-computer operating system which provided a foundation for new dis- tributor networks in a wide range of commercial and industrial applications, and which operated on all TI systems that use a 990-10 or 990-12 mini-computer. DNOS was designed to be compatible with the proven DX10 operating system. Mr. Levy said that Monsanto, which has been using DNOS for about three months, was very pleased with the system, and although they were not using it for similar applications, that did not negate the system's ability to do what the City needed. Mr. Adams said he understood that one of the main problems with the City's present system was that certain programs (primarily payroll) required so much space that other programs could not be run simultaneously. He asked how the DNOS system as- signed priorities and how much space was available for access memory. Mr. Levy said _ he did not have that information, but those who had evaluated the present system did not dispute the fact that DNOS, were it an established system, would solve the City's problems in terms of capacity. Mr. Ollendorff said that was correct, but no one had assured the City that DNOS would solve the basic problem of providing shared table surface area, the primary difficulty encountered by the City, for various programs. i