[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Doug McIlroy]

On recent visit to the Living Computer Museum in
Seattle I got to play with Unix on a 3B2--something
I never did at Bell Labs. Maybe next time I
go they'll offer a real nostalgia trip on
the PDP-7, thanks to Warren's efforts.

doug

[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Clem Cole]

As an interesting aside, I once pointed out to Dennis that boot loader for
the 3B2 was larger than V6.

Clem

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> On recent visit to the Living Computer Museum in
> Seattle I got to play with Unix on a 3B2--something
> I never did at Bell Labs. Maybe next time I
> go they'll offer a real nostalgia trip on
> the PDP-7, thanks to Warren's efforts.
>
> doug
>
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[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Ronald Natalie]

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> On Jul 1, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> As an interesting aside, I once pointed out to Dennis that boot loader for the 3B2 was larger than V6.
> 
> Clem

I seem to recall the 3B2 was one of the first machines I dealt with that had a “soft” power switch.    I remember not having sufficient privs on one machine to turn it off.   Fortunately, I had sufficient privs to yank the plug out of the wall.

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[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Larry McVoy]

Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC

My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
on his.  Neat machines for their time.

[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> On Jul 2, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC
> 
> My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
> on his.  Neat machines for their time.

Slick little machines.  Built by Convergent Technologies, running CTIX (their System V port).  Back in the day I was a Convergent reseller.  We never pushed the 7300, but we did shift a few MiniFrame and MightyFrame servers.

The MightyFrame was an impressive little beast.  We sold a couple that were supporting upwards of 40 terminals running database applications running under Mistress (later renamed Empress, in one of the earlier instances of political correctness invading the IT landscape).  CTIX incorporated the Berkeley network stack, and one of the systems ran an X.25 link to Datapac.

Perhaps the coolest aspect of the Convergent systems was the RS422 daisy-chained terminal interface.  The PT-100 and GT-100 terminals had loop-through RS422 interfaces, running at a couple of hundred Kb/s (I forget the exact speed).  You would daisy chain strings of terminals from the server, so 40 terminals only burned up four RS422 ports on the server side (in our deployments, at least).  Using these terminals was reminiscent of working on a 327x, since screen updates tended to come in bursts that looked just like block-mode updates.  The GT variant supported bit-mapped graphics - blazingly fast compared to something like a Tek 4010 running over an RS232 line.

--lyndon

[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[Brantley Coile]

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I had several. It would win the “largest personal machine footprint” contest. 

> On Jul 2, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC
> 
> My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
> on his.  Neat machines for their time.

[TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)

[arnold]

Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC

I did! I spent many pleasant hours developing gawk and its documentation
on mine. There was a separate USENET network of 7300 and 3B1 owners (unixpc.*
heirarchy) which I was on.

With the Telebit modems, things moved REALLY fast.

Comp.sys.3b1 is still alive and occasionally sees activity.

Ah, the nostalgia... :-)

Arnold