From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 3693 invoked from network); 29 May 2023 07:28:30 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 29 May 2023 07:28:30 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB4E641085; Mon, 29 May 2023 17:28:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: from lists.tip.net.au (pasta.tip.net.au [203.10.76.2]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 081C941082 for ; Mon, 29 May 2023 17:28:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from [192.168.1.5] (ppp118-208-161-109.cbr-trn-nor-bras39.tpg.internode.on.net [118.208.161.109]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mailhost.tip.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4QV6ZP5jLrz9QRD; Mon, 29 May 2023 17:28:13 +1000 (AEST) From: steve jenkin Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 12.4 \(3445.104.21\)) Date: Mon, 29 May 2023 17:28:12 +1000 Message-Id: To: COFF X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3445.104.21) Message-ID-Hash: FRGFRI27T7N2P6YEPVPYDKXMCAQSQ6SH X-Message-ID-Hash: FRGFRI27T7N2P6YEPVPYDKXMCAQSQ6SH X-MailFrom: sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [COFF] Bell Labs vs "East Coast" Management style of AT&T List-Id: Computer Old Farts Forum Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: I was wondering if anyone close to Early Unix and Bell Labs would offer = some comments on the evolution of Unix and the quality of decisions made by AT&T senior = managers. Tom Wolfe did an interesting piece on Fairchild / Silicon Valley, where he highlights the difference between SV=E2=80=99s management style and the =E2=80=9CEast Coast=E2=80=9D Management style. [ Around 2000, =E2=80=9CSilicon Valley=E2=80=9D changed from being = =E2=80=98chips & hardware=E2=80=99 to =E2=80=99software=E2=80=99 & = systems ] [ with chip making, every new generation / technology step resets = competition, monopolies can=E2=80=99t be maintained ] [ Microsoft showed that Software is the opposite. Vendor Lock-in & = monopolies are common, even easy for aggressive players ] Noyce & Moore ran Fairchild Semiconductor, but Fairchild Camera & = Instrument was =E2=80=98East Coast=E2=80=99 or =E2=80=9COld School=E2=80=9D - extracting maximum profit. It seems to me, an outsider, that AT&T management saw how successful = Unix was and decided they could apply their size, =E2=80=9Cmarketing knowhow=E2=80=9D= and client lists to becoming a big player in Software & Hardware. This appears to be the reason for the 1984 divestiture. In another decade, they gave up and got out of Unix. Another decade on, AT&T had one of the Baby Bells, SBC, buy it. SBC had understood the future growth markets for telephony was = =E2=80=9CMobile=E2=80=9D and instead of =E2=80=9CTraditional=E2=80=9D Telco pricing, =E2=80=9CWhat = the market will bear=E2=80=9D p[lus requiring Gross Margins over 90%, SBC adopted more of a Silicon Valley pricing approach - modest Gross = Margins and high =E2=80=9Cpass through=E2=80=9D rates - handing most/all cost = reductions onto customers. If you=E2=80=99re in a Commodity market, passing on cost savings to = customers is =E2=80=9CProfit Maximising=E2=80=9D. It isn=E2=80=99t because Commodity markets are highly competitive, but = Volumes drive profit, and lower prices stimulate demand / Volumes. [ Price Elasticity of = Demand ] Kenneth Flamm has written a lot on =E2=80=9CPass Through=E2=80=9D in = Silicon Chip manufacture. Just to close the loop, Bells Labs, around 1966, hired Fred Terman, = ex-Dean of Stanford, to write a proposal for =E2=80=9CSilicon Valley East=E2=80=9D. The AT&T management were fully aware of California and perhaps it was a = long term threat. How could they replicate in New Jersey the powerhouse of innovation that = was happening in California? Many places in many countries looked at this and a few even tried. Apparently South Korea is the only attempt that did reasonably. I haven=E2=80=99t included links, but Gordon Bell, known for formulating = a law of computer =E2=80=98classes=E2=80=99, did forecast early that MOS/CMOS chips would overtake Bipolar - used by = Mainframes - in speed. It gave a way to use all those transistors on a chip that Moore=E2=80=99s = Law would provide, and with CPU=E2=80=99s in a few, or one, chip, the price of systems = would plummet. He forecast the cutover in 1985 and was right. The MIPS R2000 blazed past every other chip the year it was released. And of course, the folk at MIPS understood that building their own O/S, = tools, libraries etc was a fool=E2=80=99s errand - they had Unix experience and ported a = version. By 1991, IBM was almost the Last Man Standing of the original 1970=E2=80=99= s =E2=80=9CIBM & the BUNCH=E2=80=9D, and their mainframe revenues collapsed. In 1991 and 1992, IBM racked up = the largest=20 corporate losses in US history to the time, then managed to survive. Linux has, in my mind, proven the original mid-1970=E2=80=99s position = of CSRC/1127 that Software has to be =E2=80=98cheap=E2=80=99, even =E2=80=98free=E2=80=99= - because it=E2=80=99s a Commodity and can be =E2=80=99substituted=E2=80= =99 by others. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D 1956 - AT&T / IBM Consent decree: 'no computers, no software=E2=80=99 1974 - CACM article, CSRC/1127 in Software Research, no commercial = Software allowed 1984 - AT&T divested, doing commercial Software & Computers 1994 - AT&T Sells Unix 1996 - =E2=80=9CTri-vestiture", Bell Labs sold to Lucent, some staff to = AT&T Research. 2005 - SBC buys AT&T, long-lines + 4 baby bells 1985 - MIPS R2000, x2 throughput at same clock speed. Faster than = bipolar, CMOS CPU's soon overtook ECL =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Code Critic John Lions wrote the first, and perhaps only, literary criticism of = Unix, sparking one of open source's first legal battles. Rachel Chalmers November 30, 1999 https://www.salon.com/test2/1999/11/30/lions_2/=20 "By the time the seventh edition system came out, the company had = begun to worry more about the intellectual property issues and trade = secrets and so forth," Ritchie explains. "There was somewhat of a struggle between us in the research group = who saw the benefit in having the system readily available, and the Unix Support Group ... Even though in the 1970s Unix was not a commercial proposition, USG and the lawyers were cautious. At any rate, we in research lost the argument." This awkward situation lasted nearly 20 years. Even as USG became Unix System Laboratories (USL) and was half = divested to Novell, which in turn sold it to the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), Ritchie never lost hope that the Lions books could see the light of = day. He leaned on company after company. "This was, after all, 25-plus-year-old material, but when they would = ask their lawyers, they would say that they couldnt see any harm at first glance,=20 but there was a sort of 'but you never know ...' attitude, and they = never got the courage to go ahead," he explains. Finally, at SCO [ by July 1996 ], Ritchie hit paydirt. He already knew Mike Tilson, an SCO executive. With the help of his fellow Unix gurus Peter Salus and Berny = Goodheart, Ritchie brought pressure to bear. "Mike himself drafted a 'grant of permission' letter," says Ritchie, "'to save the legal people from doing the work!'" Research, at last, had won. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Tom Wolfe, Esquire, 1983, on Bob Noyce: The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce | Esquire | DECEMBER 1983.webarchive http://classic.esquire.com/the-tinkerings-of-robert-noyce/ =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Special Places IEEE Spectrum Magazine May 2000 Robert W. Lucky (Bob Lucky) = https://web.archive.org/web/20030308074213/http://www.boblucky.com/reflect= /may00.htm https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=3D803583 Why does place matter? Why does it matter where we live and work today = when the world is so connected that we're never out of touch with people = or information? The problem is, even if they get da Vinci, it won't work. There's just something special about Florence, and it doesn't travel. Just as in this century many places have tried to build their own = Silicon Valley. While there have been some successes in Boston, Research Triangle Park, Austin, and Cambridge in the U.K., to name a few significant places, most attempts have paled in comparison = to the Bay Area prototype. In the mid-1960s New Jersey brought in Fred Terman, the Dean at Stanford = and architect of Silicon Valley, and commissioned him to start a Silicon = Valley East. [ Terman reited from Stanford in 1965 ] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design=20 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin