27 Aug
2018
27 Aug
'18
11:06 p.m.
On Mon, Aug 27, 2018, at 8:54 AM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
Inside AT&T (but outside research) there was
considerable pressure to
use AT&T products (3B, System V, BLIT/5620, Datakit) rather than the
externally developing Sun/Ethernet/TCP suite, especially in the mid-
late 1980s. We all (mostly) hated them and wanted Suns, but we were
told "eat your own dog food." The 3B20 and 3B5 were awful, but the
3B2 had potential. Once we got a working TCP/IP network in Bell Labs
the tide turned in favor of Suns.>
On 08/24/2018 09:06 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 11:13 AM Seth Morabito
> <web(a)loomcom.com> wrote:>>>
>> ...
>> I've begun to wonder whether 3B2 hardware was used very much inside
>> of Bell Labs.>> I'd be curious to hear of people that actually used
it. AT&T forced
> you to buy one with SVR3 as the porting base (I'd have never had
> bought the one we had a Stellar otherwise).>> The only time I ever knew anyone
run one, was to check to see the
> behavior of some code/validation testing of RFS *etc*...[...]
Thank you all for your many replies!
I have a soft spot for the 3B2 because I've put so much work into
reverse engineering it and understanding it, but I can absolutely
understand why everyone wanted Suns. The 3B2 was a funny architecture,
and unless it had been a breakout hit right from the start, I can't
imagine a path that would have led to 3B2s taking over the world.
-Seth
--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA
web(a)loomcom.com