6 Apr
2021
6 Apr
'21
5:35 p.m.
I wonder. IBM introduced the IBM PC in August of
1981.
That was years after a non-memory managed version of
Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
Doug
6 Apr
6 Apr
7:09 p.m.
Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put out a version of Xenix,
although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
ᐧ
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:36 AM M Douglas McIlroy <
m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
I wonder. IBM
introduced the IBM PC in August of 1981.
That was years after a non-memory managed version of
Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
Doug
7:32 p.m.
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine, ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
On 4/6/2021 12:09 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put out a
version of Xenix,
although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
ᐧ
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:36 AM M Douglas McIlroy
<m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu
<mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>> wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
I wonder. IBM introduced the IBM PC in August of
1981.
That was years after a non-memory managed version of
Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
Doug
10:11 p.m.
On 2021 Apr 6, 12:32, Charles H Sauer wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine,
ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
Hi. I'm curious about that Xenix vintage. How did you use that machine:
headless from a serial terminal?, or at the VGA console? Was it "single
user" or shared among several people? Did you run Xenix and only SCO
provided software, or did you had third party software in it? Were you
using it by choice as your favourite Unix, or merely because it was the
only Unix you could have? Did you like living with Xenix? Did it have
problems, o was it "setup and forget"?
If you feel like sharing that experience, thank you very much.
--
Josh Good
10:26 p.m.
Josh,
At the time (1982-83), Xenix was the only Unix available to me. By 1984, we upgraded to a
full-fledged NCR 1632 system, with Unix SVR4.
Installation was through a VGA console and after it was up and running, you could add
serial terminals to your heart's content.
We mostly wrote our own software, but had productivity packages for word processing,
spreadsheets, and databases (non-SQL).
Xenix was my first experience with *nix. I "caught the bug" and have been
working with *nix ever since.
Cheers,
Jim
From: "Josh Good" <pepe(a)naleco.com>
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 4:11:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix (had been How to Kill a Technical Conference
On 2021 Apr 6, 12:32, Charles H Sauer wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine,
ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
Hi. I'm curious about that Xenix vintage. How did you use that machine:
headless from a serial terminal?, or at the VGA console? Was it "single
user" or shared among several people? Did you run Xenix and only SCO
provided software, or did you had third party software in it? Were you
using it by choice as your favourite Unix, or merely because it was the
only Unix you could have? Did you like living with Xenix? Did it have
problems, o was it "setup and forget"?
If you feel like sharing that experience, thank you very much.
--
Josh Good
10:47 p.m.
To try to answer Josh's questions:
- I used the machine from console, certainly pre-VGA, probably CGA
- I don't recall anyone else using it directly
- The primary purpose was uucp for mail and news, dialing into machines
at UT-Austin
- I can't imagine having anything on it besides what was needed for mail
and news
- my primary focus was AIX at the time, but hardware for AIX was scarce
(https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beg…)
-- after I got an RT in my office, and, eventually, at home, the Xenix
machine persisted for uucp, IIRC
- my memory was that the AT & Xenix were ok for the intended purpose
- I remember a friend questioning whether the AT was really adequate for
9600 baud uucp, but I don't recall having problems with that
- it looks like someone kept it in place after I left IBM in 1989, since
http://web.mit.edu/kolya/sipb/afs/root.afs/athena.mit.edu/reference/net-dir…
lists it in 1991
Charlie
On 4/6/2021 3:26 PM, Jim Capp wrote:
Josh,
At the time (1982-83), Xenix was the only Unix available to me. By
1984, we upgraded to a full-fledged NCR 1632 system, with Unix SVR4.
Installation was through a VGA console and after it was up and running,
you could add serial terminals to your heart's content.
We mostly wrote our own software, but had productivity packages for word
processing, spreadsheets, and databases (non-SQL).
Xenix was my first experience with *nix. I "caught the bug" and have
been working with *nix ever since.
Cheers,
Jim
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From: *"Josh Good" <pepe(a)naleco.com>
*To: *tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
*Sent: *Tuesday, April 6, 2021 4:11:19 PM
*Subject: *Re: [TUHS] PC Unix (had been How to Kill a Technical Conference
On 2021 Apr 6, 12:32, Charles H Sauer wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp
machine, ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
Hi. I'm curious about that Xenix vintage. How did you use that machine:
headless from a serial terminal?, or at the VGA console? Was it "single
user" or shared among several people? Did you run Xenix and only SCO
provided software, or did you had third party software in it? Were you
using it by choice as your favourite Unix, or merely because it was the
only Unix you could have? Did you like living with Xenix? Did it have
problems, o was it "setup and forget"?
If you feel like sharing that experience, thank you very much.
--
Josh Good
7 Apr
7 Apr
6:42 p.m.
On 2021 Apr 6, 15:47, Charles H Sauer wrote:
- it looks like someone kept it in place after I left
IBM in 1989, since
http://web.mit.edu/kolya/sipb/afs/root.afs/athena.mit.edu/reference/net-dir…
lists it in 1991
Very interesting. So I understand the email-through-UUCP duties of that
Xenix machine were to handle not just your personal email, but the email of
several people in a Department, was that so?
If that was the case, how did the other people read their email in the same
Xenix machine, through serial consoles or taking turns at the VGA/CGA
console?
--
Josh Good
8:04 p.m.
I think a few other people got mail through ibmchs while I ran it, but I
don't remember if/who/how. I don't know anything about ibmchs after May
1989.
On 4/7/2021 11:42 AM, Josh Good wrote:
On 2021 Apr 6, 15:47, Charles H Sauer wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
- it looks like someone kept it in place after I
left IBM in 1989, since
http://web.mit.edu/kolya/sipb/afs/root.afs/athena.mit.edu/reference/net-dir…
lists it in 1991
Very interesting. So I understand the email-through-UUCP duties of that
Xenix machine were to handle not just your personal email, but the email of
several people in a Department, was that so?
If that was the case, how did the other people read their email in the same
Xenix machine, through serial consoles or taking turns at the VGA/CGA
console?
4:49 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021, Jim Capp wrote:
Xenix was my first experience with *nix. I
"caught the bug" and have
been working with *nix ever since.
Our Xenix box (out of many Unix boxen) was called "toy" for a reason; it
was horribly primitive (OK, it was just a '286), and no longer exists,
thank Babbage.
-- Dave
8:04 a.m.
Jim Capp <jcapp(a)anteil.com> wrote:
Josh,
At the time (1982-83), Xenix was the only Unix available to me. By 1984,
we upgraded to a full-fledged NCR 1632 system, with Unix SVR4.
1984 was SVR2 time frame. SVR4 wasn't released until 1989....
At what point did AT&T buy NCR? More like early 90s, no?
Arnold
6:01 p.m.
May 1991.
Heinz
On 2021-04-06 23:04, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
Jim Capp <jcapp(a)anteil.com> wrote:
Josh,
At the time (1982-83), Xenix was the only Unix available to me. By
1984,
we upgraded to a full-fledged NCR 1632 system, with Unix SVR4.
1984 was SVR2 time frame. SVR4 wasn't released until 1989....
At what point did AT&T buy NCR? More like early 90s, no?
Arnold
6 Apr
6 Apr
11:06 p.m.
Like a lot of things, it depends. In the early 80s, they tried to break
the 'small' computer market that had been using minis like PDP-11s or DG
Novas. A saw a lot of small installations at places like car
dealerships and repair houses. You strapped a cheap terminal [Wyse
25/50/60/75 were very popular]. My local Chinese restaurant still runs
with 3 Wyse 60s talking to something in the back. It used to be a Wyse
386:16 running Xenix.
As Charlie said he ran a UUCP server on one. Someone (3COM maybe) added
an ethernet and an 8/16 line serial board like the Rocket Board (which I
think I may still have one around) and sold them as terminal servers. to
larger systems.
A few things happen --- the 68000 style machines such as Masscomp, Apollo,
and Sun could do the same thing much better and were not much different in
price (remember an original PC/AT 286 with max memory and DOS cost $5K at
computerland and it was another $1k for Xenix plus whatever the app cost).
Compaq was cheaper but not much. A diskless Sun3 was 7.5K also, but you
needed at least one full Sun3 to be the server (and they also sucked, most
people bought add-in disk Unix for another 4K -- another good story for
another time]. The Apps cost the same between Xenix and Sun and that sort
of sealed the deal, particularly when the apps moved to DOS and then were
cheaper still.
So if you wanted a timing sharing box there were options that were in the
same price range and basically 'better' AND IBM/Compaq started to push DOS
and that ecosystem which was cheaper.
ᐧ
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 4:12 PM Josh Good <pepe(a)naleco.com> wrote:
On 2021 Apr 6, 12:32, Charles H Sauer wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp
machine, ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
Hi. I'm curious about that Xenix vintage. How did you use that machine:
headless from a serial terminal?, or at the VGA console? Was it "single
user" or shared among several people? Did you run Xenix and only SCO
provided software, or did you had third party software in it? Were you
using it by choice as your favourite Unix, or merely because it was the
only Unix you could have? Did you like living with Xenix? Did it have
problems, o was it "setup and forget"?
If you feel like sharing that experience, thank you very much.
--
Josh Good
7 Apr
7 Apr
2:58 a.m.
I developed LSX at Bell Labs in Murray Hill NJ in the 1974-1975
timeframe.
An existing C compiler made it possible without too much effort. The
UNIX
source was available to Universities by then. I also developed Mini-UNIX
for the PDP11/10 (also no memory protection) in the 1976 timeframe.
This source code was also made available to Universities, but the source
code for LSX was not.
Peter Weiner, the founder of INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.(ISC) in June
1977,
the first commercial company to license UNIX source from Western
Electric for $20,000. Binary licenses were available at the same time.
I joined ISC in May of 1978 when ISC was the first company to offer
UNIX support services to third parties. There was never any talk about
licensing UNIX source code from Western Electric (WE) from the founding
of ISC to when the Intel 8086 micro became available in 1981.
DEC never really targeted the PC market with the LSI-11 micro,
and WE never made it easy to license binary copies of the UNIX
source code, So LSX never really caught on in the commercial market.
ISC was in the business of porting the UNIX source code to other
computers, micro to mainframe, as new computer architectures
were developed.
Heinz
On 2021-04-06 10:32, Charles H Sauer wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine,
ibmchs, was an
AT running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
On 4/6/2021 12:09 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put out a version of
> Xenix, although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
> ᐧ
>
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:36 AM M Douglas McIlroy
> <m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu
> <mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>> wrote:
>
> > I wonder. IBM introduced the IBM PC in August of 1981.
> > That was years after a non-memory managed version of
> > Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
> > on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
> > on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
>
> IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
> 1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
> advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
> settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
> considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
> selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
> rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
>
> Doug
>
3:37 a.m.
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 7:31 PM <heinz(a)osta.com> wrote:
I developed LSX at Bell Labs in Murray Hill NJ in the
1974-1975
timeframe.
An existing C compiler made it possible without too much effort. The
UNIX
source was available to Universities by then. I also developed Mini-UNIX
for the PDP11/10 (also no memory protection) in the 1976 timeframe.
This source code was also made available to Universities, but the source
code for LSX was not.
Peter Weiner, the founder of INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.(ISC) in June
1977,
the first commercial company to license UNIX source from Western
Electric for $20,000. Binary licenses were available at the same time.
I joined ISC in May of 1978 when ISC was the first company to offer
UNIX support services to third parties. There was never any talk about
licensing UNIX source code from Western Electric (WE) from the founding
of ISC to when the Intel 8086 micro became available in 1981.
DEC never really targeted the PC market with the LSI-11 micro,
and WE never made it easy to license binary copies of the UNIX
source code, So LSX never really caught on in the commercial market.
ISC was in the business of porting the UNIX source code to other
computers, micro to mainframe, as new computer architectures
were developed.
As the author of LSX and MiniUnix, are you aware of anybody porting
them to another non PDP-11 architecture? ISC didn't do that at all, but
maybe you heard of something through the years?
Warner
5:38 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021, Warner Losh wrote:
As the author of LSX and MiniUnix, are you aware of
anybody porting them
to another non PDP-11 architecture? ISC didn't do that at all, but maybe
you heard of something through the years?
hat depends on whether you count that horrible DEC mini-box or not (name
thankfully forgotten); it was pure floppy, and we had to disable "update"
somehow as otherwise it would wear a hole into wherever the superblock
was.
-- Dave
4:30 a.m.
What year was this, Charles?
Ed
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 12:33 PM Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com>
wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine,
ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
On 4/6/2021 12:09 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
--
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
Cicero
Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put
out a version of Xenix,
although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
ᐧ
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:36 AM M Douglas McIlroy
<m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu
<mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>> wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter
<https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter>:
CharlesHSauer
I wonder. IBM introduced the IBM PC in August of
1981.
That was years after a non-memory managed version of
Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
Doug
4:44 a.m.
Not sure when started, probably 1986, continued through my departure in May 1989, and
apparently the machine continued after that.
On Apr 6, 2021, at 9:30 PM, Ed Bradford
<egbegb2(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What year was this, Charles?
Ed
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 12:33 PM Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com
<mailto:sauer@technologists.com>> wrote:
For much of my last few years at IBM, my uucp machine, ibmchs, was an AT
running Xenix, probably that version of Xenix.
On 4/6/2021 12:09 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
<mailto:sauer@technologists.com>
fax: +1.512.346.5240 web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
<http://technologists.com/sauer/>
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put
out a version of Xenix,
although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
ᐧ
On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:36 AM M Douglas McIlroy
<m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu <mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
<mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu
<mailto:m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>>> wrote:
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
<mailto:sauer@technologists.com>
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter
<https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter>: CharlesHSauer
--
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
Cicero
I wonder. IBM introduced the IBM PC in August of
1981.
That was years after a non-memory managed version of
Unix was created by Heinze Lycklama, LSX. Is anyone
on this list familiar with Bell Labs management thoughts
on selling IBM on LSX rather than "dos"?
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in
1980. (CP/M had been introduced in 1974, before the
advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.) By then IBM had
settled on Basic and Intel. I do not believe they ever
considered Unix and DEC, nor that AT&T considered
selling to IBM. (AT&T had--fortunately--long since been
rebuffed in an attempt to sell to DEC.)
Doug
6 Apr
6 Apr
10:20 p.m.
On Tuesday 2021-04-06 13:09, Clem Cole wrote:
Doug -- IIRC IBM private-labeled a Microsoft put out a
version of Xenix,
although I think it required an PC/AT (286)
I had the SCO Xeinx 286 version. It was OK, but lacked a lot of
features. I ran it on the Sperry IT macine. I think was there
equivealant machine tot the IBM AT.
--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb(a)zenez.com> 801 849-0213
ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047
7 Apr
7 Apr
12:41 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021, M Douglas McIlroy wrote:
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M
in 1980. (CP/M had
been introduced in 1974, before the advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX
ran.) [...]
And unlike the popular urban myth, Gary Kildall was not out playing golf
when IBM tried to contact him.
-- Dave
3:10 a.m.
Dave Horsfall writes:
And unlike the popular urban myth, Gary Kildall was
not out playing golf
when IBM tried to contact him.
The myth that I had always heard was that he was out flying his airplane.
I asked Tom Rolander about it a few years ago, and it turns out that it
is true but misleading; he was coming back from a customer visit, not
goofing off.
Another thing that Tom told me was that the reason that DRI didn't sign
with IBM was that IBM wanted "we own all your stuff and you have liability
for everything" terms. DRI wasn't willing to do that because they had a
real business; Gates had nothing and therefore had nothing to lose.
IBM was pretty heavy-handed. A while ago a kid that I mentored asked me
to review an NDA that IBM wanted him to sign for a summer internship. It
defined confidential material as "anything that is being done, has ever
been done, or is being contemplated by IBM, any of its subsidiaries or
assigns". I told him not to sign it unless they were willing to add
"that we make you aware of" because there was probably nobody at IBM who
knew all of that. So he went to Mozilla for the summer instead, got
jazzed about open source, and made a good contribution. Then, his company
was purchased by Red Hat and then by IBM, so I guess one can't escape.
Jon
3:47 a.m.
On Tuesday, 6 April 2021 at 18:10:48 -0700, Jon Steinhart wrote:
Dave Horsfall writes:
Another hypothesis I had ties in with this: both he and Bill Gates
were speakers at Euromicro 1980 in London, from 16 to 18 September.
Bill Gates was a no-show. Would that fit in with Gary's "gone
flying"?
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
And unlike the popular urban myth, Gary Kildall
was not out playing golf
when IBM tried to contact him.
The myth that I had always heard was that he was out flying his airplane.
I asked Tom Rolander about it a few years ago, and it turns out that it
is true but misleading; he was coming back from a customer visit, not
goofing off.
3:49 a.m.
Greg 'groggy' Lehey writes:
Another hypothesis I had ties in with this: both he and Bill Gates
were speakers at Euromicro 1980 in London, from 16 to 18 September.
Bill Gates was a no-show. Would that fit in with Gary's "gone
flying"?
Greg
According to Tom, no, he was visiting a somewhat local customer, I
think in the bay area, which is why he was flying his plane. This
wasn't the modern times when CEOs owned fancy jets.
3:58 a.m.
On Tue, Apr 06, 2021 at 06:49:31PM -0700, Jon Steinhart wrote:
Greg 'groggy' Lehey writes:
Yeah, I went and looked, it was a small $5M/year (not that small)
business and for some reason he was delivering software with his
small plane.
Another hypothesis I had ties in with this: both he and Bill Gates
were speakers at Euromicro 1980 in London, from 16 to 18 September.
Bill Gates was a no-show. Would that fit in with Gary's "gone
flying"?
Greg
According to Tom, no, he was visiting a somewhat local customer, I
think in the bay area, which is why he was flying his plane. This
wasn't the modern times when CEOs owned fancy jets. 
4:31 a.m.
Serial port performance did not scale well on early pcs, so an industry was
grown with smart serial cards. There were a few serial cards, but most
didn't have the smarts, just shared interrupts. Best performing, in my
usage, was the Stallion brand, an Australian company. These cards had their
own processor, uarts and ram. Had used 4-32 ports. I am guessing they did
high speed transfers via the high speed bus on the PC, relieving the main
CPU from getting interrupts, doing queuing, caching etc. These cards were
supported by SCO products like Xenix and Unix, some others and ran on a PC.
Flying aircraft could be efficient for some visits that didn't have direct
city pairs served by airlines, especially the US. Plus a lot of fun, if you
do it yourself.
I used to push statistical and financial data around Australia in the 80s
via dial up using automated scripting with Zmodem, Sun hosts, PC remotes.
Was very reliable.
IBM NDAs and legals can feel overwhelming in meetings....
Serge
On Wed, 7 Apr 2021 at 11:59, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 06, 2021 at 06:49:31PM -0700, Jon
Steinhart wrote:
Greg 'groggy' Lehey writes:
Yeah, I went and looked, it was a small $5M/year (not that small)
business and for some reason he was delivering software with his
small plane.
Another hypothesis I had ties in with this: both he and Bill Gates
were speakers at Euromicro 1980 in London, from 16 to 18 September.
Bill Gates was a no-show. Would that fit in with Gary's "gone
flying"?
Greg
According to Tom, no, he was visiting a somewhat local customer, I
think in the bay area, which is why he was flying his plane. This
wasn't the modern times when CEOs owned fancy jets. 
9 Apr
9 Apr
11:24 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Apr 2021, Dave Horsfall wrote:
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2021 17:41:21
From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix (had been How to Kill a Technical Conference
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021, M Douglas McIlroy wrote:
Gary Killdall was a host on PBS' "The Computer Chronicles" and they did
a story on him after his death that covers this, as well as other info
on his life and work with DRI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVqBokd3l2E
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
IBM famously failed to buy the well-established
CP/M in 1980. (CP/M had
been introduced in 1974, before the advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX ran.)
[...]
And unlike the popular urban myth, Gary Kildall was not out playing golf when
IBM tried to contact him.
10 Apr
10 Apr
5:33 a.m.
The Kildall biography video is WAYYYYY informative. THANK YOU!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVqBokd3l2E
Why did a Ph.D., an academic, and a computer scientist not know about UNIX
in 1974 or so? 1976? In 1976, some (many?) universities had source code. I
had an account ("egb") on ucbunix (University of California, Berkeley) in
1978 or so. I was one of the initial "customers" of Bill Joy's
"vi".
We really need to add Bill Joy to this community. He has a LOT to add to
the history of UNIX -- especially from the view from UCB folks.
Where is Bill Joy today? Of all the folks I've ever met, Bill Joy is the
only one who, had he joined BTL 127, would have had major contributions. He
didn't. He went the route of being a founding person with Sun Microsystems.
I would have done the same.
Bill Joy, where are you?
On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 4:32 PM Michael Parson <mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
On Wed, 7 Apr 2021, Dave Horsfall wrote:
when
--
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
Cicero
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2021 17:41:21
From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix (had been How to Kill a Technical Conference
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021, M Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> IBM famously failed to buy the well-established CP/M in 1980. (CP/M had
> been introduced in 1974, before the advent of the LSI-11 on which LSX
ran.)
[...]
And unlike the popular urban myth, Gary Kildall was not out playing golf IBM tried to contact him.
Gary Killdall was a host on PBS' "The Computer Chronicles" and they did
a story on him after his death that covers this, as well as other info
on his life and work with DRI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVqBokd3l2E
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
5:12 p.m.
On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:34 PM Ed Bradford <egbegb2(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Why did a Ph.D., an academic, and a computer scientist
not know about UNIX
in 1974 or so? 1976? In 1976, some (many?) universities had source code.
Some knowns/givens at the time ...
1.) He was a language/compiler type person -- he had created PL/M and that
was really what he was originally trying to show off. As I understand it
and has been reported in other interviews, originally CP/M was an attempt
to show off what you could do with PL/M.
2.) The 8080/Z80 S-100 style machines we quite limited, they had very
little memory, no MMU, and extremely limited storage in the 8" floppies
3.) He was familiar with RT/11 and DOS-11, many Universities had it on
smaller PDP-11s as they ran on an 11/20 without an MMU also with limited
memory, and often used simple (primarily tape) storage (DECtape and
Cassette's) as the default 'laboratory' system, replacing the earlier
PDP-8
for the same job which primarily ran DOS-8 in those settings.
4.) Fifth and Sixth Edition of Unix was $150 for university but to run it,
it took a larger at least 11/40 or 45, with a minimum of 64Kbytes to boot
and really need the full 256Kbytes to run acceptably and the cost of a 2.5M
byte RK05 disk was much greater per byte than tape -- thus the base system
it took to run it was at least $60K (in 1975 dollars) and typically cost
about two to four times that in practice. Remember the cost of
acquisition of the HW dominated many (most) choices.
*I**'ll take a guess, but it is only that.* I *suspect* he saw the S-100
system as closer to a PDP-11/20 'lab' system than as a small
timesharing machine. He set out with CP/M to duplication the functionality
from RT/11. He even the naming of the commands was the same as what DEC
used (*e.g.* PIP) and used the basic DEC style command syntax and parsing
rules.
Bill Joy, where are you?
Some of us, know how to find him. I know that at least at one time,
was made aware of this mailing list and have been invited to join it. It
is his choice to not be a part.
ᐧ
5:41 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 11:12:51AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:34 PM Ed Bradford
<egbegb2(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It was around 1983 or so when I bought a CP/M system, I think an
Okidata. It was a weird, but fun, machine, had a printer built
into the base behind the keyboard, dual 5" floppies, 128K less
the bitmapped color display. $2000.
It was slow but dramatically faster than 1/32-164th of a 1MB VAX 780.
Why did a Ph.D., an academic, and a computer
scientist not know about UNIX
in 1974 or so? 1976? In 1976, some (many?) universities had source code.
4.) Fifth and Sixth Edition of Unix was $150 for university but to run it,
it took a larger at least 11/40 or 45, with a minimum of 64Kbytes to boot
and really need the full 256Kbytes to run acceptably and the cost of a 2.5M
byte RK05 disk was much greater per byte than tape -- thus the base system
it took to run it was at least $60K (in 1975 dollars) and typically cost
about two to four times that in practice. Remember the cost of
acquisition of the HW dominated many (most) choices.
1318
days inactive
1322
days old
27 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
arnold＠skeeve.com -
Boyd Lynn Gerber -
Charles H Sauer -
Charles H. Sauer
-
Clem Cole -
Dave Horsfall -
Ed Bradford -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
heinz＠osta.com -
Jim Capp -
Jon Steinhart -
Josh Good -
Larry McVoy -
M Douglas McIlroy -
Michael Parson -
Serge Burjak -
Warner Losh