28 Jun
2006
28 Jun
'06
2:03 a.m.
On 6/28/06, Frank McConnell <fmc at reanimators.org> wrote:
NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I
remember one that was
a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running
NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two
household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the
right idea.
We had a few of those at Lucent, since, before I arrived, they bought
them from the NCR-part of AT&T with internal "funny money" rather than
spending hard coin on stuff from external vendors.
My job existed because my department was finally allowed to buy
whatever they wanted (this was after "trivestiture"), and they needed
someone with some experience with Sun hardware to get the group spun
up. I spec'ed and ordered hundreds of K$ of Sun gear, 5000s, 3000s,
etc... got to go from catalog to installation several times. Lots of
fun.
The NCR servers were, essentially, giant quad Pentium (90?) boxes with
several microchannels and loads and loads of SCSI cards. I was told
they were so DOS compatible that you could plug in a keyboard and
monitor on the back, and boot up to DOS and play DOOM.
-ethan