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@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@loomcom.com