5 Nov
2019
5 Nov
'19
10:11 p.m.
I've long forgotten the name of the work. I worked on the proposal and
part of the design study, but not the project itself. I had my hands full
with leading the HP and DEC TNC stuff. IIRC Joe Hopfield was the lead on
it. It was not really in the key of WINE. It was sort of cross
between UWIN and Interix POSIX subsystem that now ships as WSL. I've
forgotten a lot of the details now, to be honest. I seem to remember they
used the SLS as part of the scheme, but I think there was a 'process' that
was booted under OS/400 that took serviced UNIX/POSIX processes system
functions. I'll send a note a couple of LCC alumni and see if I can find
someone that knew more about it.
Clem
ᐧ
On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 3:42 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com>
wrote:
Clem,
I am very curious about this UNIX for OS/400 work it sounds either
different or much earlier than what I am familiar with. I am familiar with
the PASE environment that shipped around OS/400 V4R4 (1999?). After
AS/400s started running PowerPCish CPUs (there is a bit of history there I
won't dive into) PASE was like WINE for Linux.. same CPU arch, do some
library and linker/loader tricks to hoist a different (AIX 4.3 first)
environment within OS/400s understanding of the universe. A year or so
later, some very bright group figured to use the OS/400's Single Level
Store as the device model/device virtualization for the CPU virtualization
(LPAR) in later POWER CPUs. You could run Linux or OS/400 or AIX this
way. That work was then somewhat inverted, and pHyp was born from the
OS/400's SILC idea of machine dependent code as a light weight firmware
hypervisor in the converging iSeries and pSeries POWER systems.. they
switched the device model/device virtualization to AIX called APV or
PowerVM.
It was nicknamed "Fortress Rochester" for a reason. They did some very
nice work. But yeah IBM was running 4 large and extremely different
computing businesses in the 1990s and probably some smaller ones too. They
were very different but the systems did interoperate pretty well given the
stakes.
Regards,
Kevin
On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 1:10 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 2:03 PM Christopher Browne <cbbrowne(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
The dates seem to decently explain the
invisibility; introduction in
1992
The formal introduction of the PS/2 was April 87 (by the crew of Mash for
the TV ads IIRC). Again, if my memory serves LCC started working on UNIX
for the 370 in the mid'86s, actually before the PS/2 was announced, which
would be announced as AIX/370. ISC had done the original 386 port for
Intel, IBM, and AT&T - but that was for an ISA based systems originally
[Phil Shevrin pulled one of the best sales jobs I ever knew -- he got paid
three times for the same basic work].
At some point (and I would have to ask someone like Bruce Walker or Greg
Thiel for the better info), the contract got widen AIX to include the PS/2
- a.k.a. create AIX/386. How much of the original ISC work was that build
upon, I never knew.
LCC worked for a number of years and the two AIX's were available for
customers, probably under a special University license. The formal
introduction was later (and '92 sounds right). But there were sites that
had one or both before that time. I want to say, LCC worked with IBM for
about 8-10 years starting in the mid-80s. BTW: They also did a UNIX port to
AS/400 (on top of the native OS - similar to Eunice for the VAX or
today's MingWin and Dave Korn's UWIN stuff). I've forgotten the dates
on
that, I want to say 93/94 time frame.
Enough time has gone by, I think I can safely tell another story, WRT the
AS/400. When that happened, IBM and LCC had a number oif years under their
bridge and the LCC management team thought we knew how to work with IBM.
Since we had a base IBM contract, we all figured that could be
added/amended to as needed. When the folks from Rochester called asking
about a quote for the AS/400 work, our sales folks trotted out the existing
contract for AIX and figured - ok write a new SOW and we are done. Nope
-- different division/different set of lawyers. Something was said to us
in the form of 'Rochester Won the Baldridge Award.' I remember our CEO
groaning - and saying something like 'Here we go again.' It was then I
realized IBM was N different companies, each competing with each other.
Clem
ᐧ