16 Jan
1999
16 Jan
'99
3:42 a.m.
All this noise about the younger OSes (Linux, FreeBSD)
got me thinking. I vaccilate between amused and annoyed
over the bickering between the Linux and FreeBSD contingents.
That kind of thing is part of the reason Windoze owns as
much of the matket as it does. I realize nobody could
predict the way it would take off, but when MS first started
to own the desktop, the *users* of UNIX should have started
cooperating. But instead, they went along with the vendor
factions, and Windoze won.
Yeah, I know, it was somewhat inevitable. But I don't think
it would have been quite as bad as it is. So learn from
history. Feel free to argue in private, but in public, I'd
push the overall UNIX-like OS, with just a recommendation.
Of course, it's a good feeling to even have the option.
Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
you weren't the government or a university?
1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still not cheap.
3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos or
Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
(Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on a used
PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on a working
workstation.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a Perkin-Elmer desktop
running Linux? IIRC, it was pretty much a straight port of
whatever was current from bell Labs at the time - or maybe an
older version.
-Miles
16 Jan
16 Jan
4:15 a.m.
On Sat, 16 Jan 1999, Miles O'Neal wrote:
All this noise about the younger OSes (Linux,
FreeBSD)
got me thinking. I vaccilate between amused and annoyed
over the bickering between the Linux and FreeBSD contingents.
That kind of thing is part of the reason Windoze owns as
much of the matket as it does. I realize nobody could
predict the way it would take off, but when MS first started
to own the desktop, the *users* of UNIX should have started
cooperating. But instead, they went along with the vendor
factions, and Windoze won.
Here's an analogy for you:
Linux = DOS
FreeBSD = CP/M
Therefore, Linux will come to dominate the world. So don't worry.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
6:53 a.m.
All this noise about the younger OSes (Linux,
FreeBSD)
got me thinking. I vaccilate between amused and annoyed
over the bickering between the Linux and FreeBSD contingents.
That kind of thing is part of the reason Windoze owns as
much of the matket as it does. I realize nobody could
predict the way it would take off, but when MS first started
to own the desktop, the *users* of UNIX should have started
cooperating. But instead, they went along with the vendor
factions, and Windoze won.
Yeah, I know, it was somewhat inevitable. But I don't think
it would have been quite as bad as it is. So learn from
history. Feel free to argue in private, but in public, I'd
push the overall UNIX-like OS, with just a recommendation.
Of course, it's a good feeling to even have the option.
Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
you weren't the government or a university?
1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
Very expensive.
2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still
not cheap.
As above.
3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos
or
Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
(Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
The machine's maxed out at 2.5 mb of memory for the XF-200's.
The 7300's and 7350's originally maxed out at .5mb.
The Perkin-Elmers were just 68000-8mhz. Dog slow. No virtual memory.
Slow as death graphics.
They existed to control Perkin-Elmer lab stuff for lab automation.
They were mostly replaced by DEC MicroVaxes after Perkin-Elmer
got out of the computer business.
We had the problem of management not supporting faster models because
the Versabus couldn't run faster with their hardware without bus timing
problems.
Perkin-Elmer/Concurrent ran into a lot of problems with Unix because they
didn't do virtual memory until they purchased Masscomp in 1987-88.
Masscomp ran their own OS called RTU Real Time Unix.
(A SysIII varient with Berkeley and DEC extensions (picked up from RSX/11).
Perkin-Elmer desktops also were running one of three OS's:
Idris.
Uniplus Sys III
MicroXelos (UniPlus Sys V)
Their larger mini's ran:
Edition VII
Xelos (SysV rel 0 through SVR2 - swapping only no virtual memory paging)
OS/32
4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on
a used
PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
Or in this area you found a machine owned by some AT&T employee who
pirated a tape 8-). I kept looking but never found one.
5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got
source, but
it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
Minix 1.3 was very limited. V1.5 was better.
6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on
a working
workstation.
Just got my first Sparc this year 8-)
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a Perkin-Elmer
desktop
running Linux? IIRC, it was pretty much a straight port of
whatever was current from bell Labs at the time - or maybe an
older version.
But the hardware wan't close to anything there's current drivers for.
And it wasn't a 68020 so forget Linux.
-Miles
Bill
ex-DEC, eX-Concurrent Computer (who was Perkin-Elmer's computer group)
ex-IBM. Currently at Bell Labs.
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.nws.net|pechter@pechter.ddns.org
7:55 a.m.
Bill Pechter said...
|The 7300's and 7350's originally maxed out at .5mb.
That's what we looked at - a beta 7350A, I think.
|The Perkin-Elmers were just 68000-8mhz. Dog slow. No virtual memory.
|Slow as death graphics.
Everything about that system was slow. It was my first
experience with UNIX, and I was underwhelmed. I ran
into memory problems all the time - and I was just goofing
around trying to learn the thing.
|We had the problem of management not supporting faster models because
|the Versabus couldn't run faster with their hardware without bus timing
|problems.
Someone was doing something weird. We had another
VersaBus system by someone else, and it was much
faster. It was also 68K based, and a 68K is an
OK processor if you run decent code on it. Not
great, but OK...
|Perkin-Elmer/Concurrent ran into a lot of problems with Unix because they
|didn't do virtual memory until they purchased Masscomp in 1987-88.
|Masscomp ran their own OS called RTU Real Time Unix.
|(A SysIII varient with Berkeley and DEC extensions (picked up from RSX/11).
Didn't Masscomp have the first realtime version of X
that was any good?
|Perkin-Elmer desktops also were running one of three OS's:
|Idris.
|Uniplus Sys III
|MicroXelos (UniPlus Sys V)
I recall all of these, but never actually got to mess with them.
[Minis ran:]
|OS/32
This was a lot of fun. Oh, it had its drawbacks, but it was
still pretty cool. A nice, realtime OS. We had a few more
problems with them than with the MODCOMPs, hardware-wise, tho.
But overall they were pretty solid.
For those who don't know, OS/32 was a very monolithic OS.
All the common commands, such as "dir", were built into the
kernel. Working late, wandering through the kernel in the
hex editor or debugger or something (while it was running;
these really were marvelous systems) looking for some table
I needed to check a value in, I found the headings for all
the columns of the "dir command". One of the columns of
output was a combination file type/status field. I swapped
all the symbols around, so that files which would have shown
as FTN (FORTRAN) displayed as DEL (DELeted). [This example
is approximate - it's been 15 years now...] An hour or so
later I got a very satisfying scream out a co-worker. Of
course, he knew at once who it was!
I have lots of PE stories, but I'll save them for later. 8^)
|> Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a Perkin-Elmer desktop
|> running Linux? IIRC, it was pretty much a straight port of
|> whatever was current from bell Labs at the time - or maybe an
|> older version.
|
|But the hardware wan't close to anything there's current drivers for.
|And it wasn't a 68020 so forget Linux.
I meant UNIX. Sorry.
Did you know any of the PE guys in Atlanta in the early 80s?
-Miles
10:45 a.m.
> Of course, it's a good feeling to even have
the option.
> Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
> you weren't the government or a university?
>
> 1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
> 2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still not cheap.
> 3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos or
> Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
> much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
> (Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
> 4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on a used
> PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
> disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
> 5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
> it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
> but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
> Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
> 6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on a working
> workstation.
Three more thoughts...
7) You shell out big bug for XENIX or Microport SVR2 on the AT.
8) You buy one of the "fire sale" AT&T Unix PCs (7300).
9) You "cheat" with a clone envoronment like Wendin's PC/Unix or
early MKS toolkits.
<<<John>>>
7:43 p.m.
John Ruschmeyer wrote:
My two TRS-80 Model 16s were bought when their leases expired and
the companies chose not to do the buy-out. One cost me $300, the
other cost me $250 back in '85 and '86, since the Radio Shack
Computer Center managers didn't want them either -- they had Tandy
6000s. Since I was still working for Radio Shack at the time, I
wasn't too concerned about the licensing issues of upgrading to
the latest version of the Xenix runtime and development software.
> Of course, it's a good feeling to even
have the option.
> Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
> you weren't the government or a university?
>
> 1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
> 2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still not cheap.
> 3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos or
> Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
> much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
> (Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
> 4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on a used
> PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
> disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
> 5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
> it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
> but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
> Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
> 6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on a working
> workstation.
Three more thoughts...
7) You shell out big bug for XENIX or Microport SVR2 on the AT. 8) You buy one of the "fire sale" AT&T
Unix PCs (7300).
That's what I did after my second TRS-80 Model 16 was murdered by
the electric company.
9) You "cheat" with a clone envoronment like
Wendin's PC/Unix or
early MKS toolkits.
The MKS Toolkit worked just fine on the Tandy 2000. Surprised the
Hell out of me, since so much other software was ill-behaved. The
MKS folks properly used the MS-DOS system calls instead of going
straight to the PC hardware.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
9:44 p.m.
At 11:42 16/01/99 -0600, Miles O'Neal wrote:
Of course, it's a good feeling to even have the
option.
Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
you weren't the government or a university?
Well you could either buy A/UX from Apple or SCO Unix. I looked at both of
these for my first Unix system about 10 years ago. In the end I got A/UX as
it was a couple of thousand dollars cheaper though I ended up spending
about AUD$8000 on the system. Fortunately I got work to buy some of the
upgrades (like the $2000 200Mb disk...).
I've still got the A/UX box here at home. After I've had fun playing with
my new ISDN connection, I might even reconfigure it to be on the Internet
again...
9476
days inactive
9477
days old
6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
gram＠cnct.com -
H.Davies＠latrobe.edu.au -
jruschme＠exit109.com -
meo＠netads.com -
pechter＠monmouth.com