On Wed, Feb 2, 2022 at 12:31 AM ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I should have asked the other question: when did DARPA
funding start?
Sort of hard to count properly. DARA funded more than just CSRG. The
first DARPA money associated with large address work was in 1980 for the
Vax version of Maxima, although there might have been some other projects
before that. But the CSRG project had not (yet) started when I arrived in
Fall of '81, although the Stanford bake-off had and 4.1BSD was on the
street - as Joy had done the FASTVAX work earlier than spring/summer. At
that point there were two 780s for CS in Evan Halls (Ernie and Kim). The
'Vaxima' port was working and I believe that the first Franz-LISP release
was out. FWIW: The CAD group had just gotten its first in Cory which was
funded by the DEC/HP/IBM and some of the Si manufacturers. I believe that
Ingress was still an 11/70, but I would defer to Eric on that - I'm not
sure who/what was their funding source, although they had the original
ARPAnet connection via a VDHI to LBL, so DARPA must have been involved.
The C30 IMP (for CSRG) did not arrive in Evans until at least mid 82, I
think maybe '83.
So by 1981/82 the question of how UNIX (as a system) was going to be
supported for the ARPA contractors had become a ripe concern. It must have
been proposed by then and being negotiated. IIRC Prof Fabrey was
officially the PI for what would become CSRG, but some one like Eric or
Mary Ann who was already there before me might have more information on the
politics