[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Stuart, Jon]

Perhaps an OSF1-"lite", on par with 4.4BSD-Lite which had the
copyrighted code removed, would be possible to get released.  Of course,
HP would have to have a motive in doing so.

All of this, the closing of UNX, the loss of the VAX and now the dying
of the Alpha chip, is very disheartening.  Although I'm lucky enough to
have access to 5 VAXen (running 4.3 BSD UNIX and one running Ultrix4),
it's tough for anyone to learn and play with this stuff, because they
are becoming so scarce (you can by a VaxStation/MicroVax on eBay, but
these will only run Ultrix and not 4.3 BSD, unfortunately).

I also am very disappointed about the abandoning of the Alpha chip.
From it's start I was very impressed with it.  It was a very good RISC
architecture, and the first to really do 64-bit computing, and do it
well.  Before they decided to kill it, it was still the best
architecture for 64-bit computing on the market.  

Even though I'm pro-open-source, I also can't help but lament losing
many of the commercial Unices over the past few years.  The next version
of HP-UX will apparently be the last, PA-RISC is dying along with Alpha,
so presumably OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 is either dead or end-of-lifed as
well, IRIX has moved to x86 (the platform I tend to loathe the most,
probably because I know it best and learned it first),  AIX is still
around but IBM is focussing strongly on Linux, and Solaris is still
around (but they did kill SunOS 4.1.4 -- personally one of my favorite
Unices of all time, basically 4.3 BSD + Sun stuff such as OpenWindows +
nice improvements such as loadable kernel modules + pcc ported to
SPARC).

Not to mention all the mid-to-late 80's versions of UNIX -- Interactive,
AT&T System V (actually branded as that, uname -a returned
UNIX_System_V), as well as a ton of others I'm forgetting.

I guess I'm somewhat nostoglic about old UNIX, and I enjoy seeing it's
evolution.  That's why whenever I'm able to view the source code of some
closed-source UNIX, it's very enjoyable to me.  Old UNIX has a rustic
appeal to me.

It's unfortunate that it seems we must resign ourselves to a future of
x86-based OSs, such as Linux, or even Open/Free/NetBSD, which aren't
really UNIX (Linux definitely isn't, and the modern BSDs have changed
enough that they also aren't IMO).

It seems there's no diversity anymore, both in software and hardware.
It's amazing how x86 (an inferior architecture) could win the war of
architectures when it was basically a bastardized version of the VAX
(the best CISC chip ever, IMO).  There were so many superior
architectures out there, such as SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, POWER,
PowerPC, and VAX.  For x86 to win, really shows that the quality of
technology in a product really has no bearing on how it will do in the
market.  It's not about quality, it's about profitability, and they are
very often not the same.

While IA-64 is based on the PA-RISC, it's still Intel, and the choice of
operating systems for it is still going to be limited to the handful
previously mentioned.  Apple's move away from a RISC architecture
(PowerPC) to x86 is just as disheartening. 

Oh well.  I guess we are nearing the finish-line of this "race to the
bottom", because of the capitalistic influence on the computer industry.
 
My advice to anyone interested in UNIX (and computer architecture)
history is to stock up on machines now, while you can still find them on
places like eBay.  Some of the newer-but-still-dead architectures such
as SGI/MIPS are numerous on eBay.  Although, be careful when buying on
eBay, because many times you'll get a banged up, stripped of components,
unworking shell of one of the slower models of a system.  This is
particularly true when trying to acquire a SparcStation on eBay.  Good
luck trying to find a 2way SparcStation 20 with a nice size hard drive
and lots of RAM (the fastest machine SunOS 4.1.4 could run on -- and
I've heard that 4.1.4 did have very alpha SMP support, similar to what
Linux and the modern BSDs used for a long time, that being a "big giant
lock" [mutex] around the kernel).

...Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org]
On Behalf Of patv at monmouth.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 2:40 PM
To: Lyrical Nanoha; tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

I have heard some grumblings of TOG possibly releasing CDE as open
source, but have no idea of where that stands.  To be perfectly frank,
it had a lot of problems, especially in a 64-bit world.  There were too
many word size assumptions, and a very good friend struggled for many,
many hours fixing those problems before it went to DEIL in India for
support.  It could probably still benefit from a good "many eyes"
developer review and bug fix session in the hands of open source
developers.  However, IMHO, it no longer has any advantage over KDE or
Gnome, but, as I said, that is my opinion.

Personally, I'd love to see OSF1 released open source.  There were
experimental x86 and two Itanium versions in various states of
completion floating around DEC/Compaq/HP.  I was part of the last
Itanium effort before the HP merger.  That one booted to single user
before the project was killed.

OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX was already branded as UNIX, and it would
be fun to see what would happen to the landscape if a branded UNIX was
free.
 Unfortunately, too many proprietary licensed pieces of code in the HP
version, especially in System V support, for that to ever happen. Oh
well, we can all dream ...

Pat

 

> On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv at monmouth.com wrote:
> 
> > Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was 
> > the closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan
facility (UNX).
> > This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and 
> > everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for 
> > kernel, drivers, and several other components (although I personally

> > did some kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, 
> > about 1/2 of X, Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of 
> > the OS that made it useful.  If you look at old uucp headers 
> > anywhere on usenet, any of the traffic with headers that included 
> > systems with "unx" in the name was routed through this facility.  I 
> > was there from when it was Digital through Compaq and finally HP,
almost all the way through to the closing.
> 
> It would be nice if CDE were free, the rest is either part of the 
> Heirloom project or cloned in some open-source system (e.g., Lesstif).

> --;
> 
> -uso.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Monmouth Internet MI-Webmail.
http://www.monmouth.com/

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[John Cowan]

Stuart, Jon scripsit:

> Perhaps an OSF1-"lite", on par with 4.4BSD-Lite which had the
> copyrighted code removed, would be possible to get released.  

That was only possible because of the massive effort to rewrite all things
AT&T out of the BSD source.

> All of this, the closing of UNX, the loss of the VAX and now the dying
> of the Alpha chip, is very disheartening.  Although I'm lucky enough to
> have access to 5 VAXen (running 4.3 BSD UNIX and one running Ultrix4),
> it's tough for anyone to learn and play with this stuff, because they
> are becoming so scarce (you can by a VaxStation/MicroVax on eBay, but
> these will only run Ultrix and not 4.3 BSD, unfortunately).

On come the emulators.

> I guess I'm somewhat nostoglic about old UNIX, and I enjoy seeing it's
> evolution.  That's why whenever I'm able to view the source code of some
> closed-source UNIX, it's very enjoyable to me.  Old UNIX has a rustic
> appeal to me.

It's really "middle Unix" you are talking about.  Old Unix and new Unix
(and I don't agree that Linux/*BSD are not Unix) are both now open source.

> It's unfortunate that it seems we must resign ourselves to a future of
> x86-based OSs, such as Linux, or even Open/Free/NetBSD, which aren't
> really UNIX (Linux definitely isn't, and the modern BSDs have changed
> enough that they also aren't IMO).

Unix is a local minimum in the design space.  It can be reimplemented
over and over.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
If he has seen farther than others,
        it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves.
                --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Wesley Parish]

Quoting John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org>:

> Stuart, Jon scripsit:
> 
> > Perhaps an OSF1-"lite", on par with 4.4BSD-Lite which had the
> > copyrighted code removed, would be possible to get released. 
> 
> That was only possible because of the massive effort to rewrite all
> things
> AT&T out of the BSD source.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be possible to talk Novell into releasing the Unix
SysVr* source code under some form of BSD/MIT X license following the coming
evaporation of Societe Commerciel du Ondit - the SCOGroup Rumourmonging Machine.

Then get OSF1-"lite" released following that.  Eating an elephant - one bite at
a time.

Wesley Parish
<snip>
> 
> -- 
> John Cowan cowan at ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan
> If he has seen farther than others,
>  it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves.
>  --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuh s
>  



"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands" 
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

"I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!" 
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the 
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Tim Bradshaw]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 2:42 am, Wesley Parish wrote:

>
> I'm wondering if it wouldn't be possible to talk Novell into releasing
> the Unix SysVr* source code under some form of BSD/MIT X license following
> the coming evaporation of Societe Commerciel du Ondit - the SCOGroup
> Rumourmonging Machine.
>
>
> Then get OSF1-"lite" released following that.  Eating an elephant - one
> bite at a time.

I think the problem with all these `just open source it' schemes is that
they're simpler in theory than in practice.  In particular, in practice
someone has to go through the source of the system checking for everything
that might have been licensed from someone else and whose license
agreements might prohibit its release.  Few of those things will
(probably) have been kept track of, and the penalty for failure is that
some nasty residual company which now owns the stuff you licensed comes
down your throat.

For orphaned systems this is a lot of work for no obvious gain (it
wouldn't be orphaned if the organization that created it thought it had
much value to them).

A good example would probably be SunOS 4 - we already know that Sun are
quite interested in open sourcing stuff given OpenSolaris, but SunOS 4
hasn't been, presumably because it is full of stuff-they-don't-own and has
no commercial value at all.

--tim

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Peter Jeremy]

On Wed, 2006-May-17 15:30:47 -0700, Stuart, Jon wrote:
>I also am very disappointed about the abandoning of the Alpha chip.

Likewise.  And on a related subject, FreeBSD dropped its Alpha support
(from the development branch) earlier this week - it had fallen below
critical mass - and a lot of this would have been the death of the
underlying chip.

From it's start I was very impressed with it.  It was a very good RISC
>architecture, and the first to really do 64-bit computing, and do it
>well.  Before they decided to kill it, it was still the best
>architecture for 64-bit computing on the market.  

I can't think of any other architecture where the designers considered
what they needed to do to make the architecture future-proof.  The
normal architectural design criteria are a mixture of the number of
transistors they can fit on a chip today and backward compatibility.

>so presumably OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 is either dead or end-of-lifed as

It's effectively end-of-life.  There will be no future releases, though
HP will support it until about 2011.

>It's unfortunate that it seems we must resign ourselves to a future of
>x86-based OSs, such as Linux, or even Open/Free/NetBSD, which aren't
>really UNIX (Linux definitely isn't, and the modern BSDs have changed
>enough that they also aren't IMO).

If Linux and *BSD aren't Unix, how do you define Unix?  (Other than
having paid TOG the trademark licensing fees).

>PowerPC, and VAX.  For x86 to win, really shows that the quality of
>technology in a product really has no bearing on how it will do in the
>market.

That is a surprise to you?

>  It's not about quality, it's about profitability, and they are
>very often not the same.

There's a bit of a feedback loop: Starting with the IBM-PC, x86 sold
in large volumes, so there were lots of profits and design costs could
be amortised over a larger volume, allowing more man-hours to be
invested in the next generation whilst still returning a profit.  This
makes the next generation of x86 outperform the competition at a lower
price - encouraging more people to use x86.

>While IA-64 is based on the PA-RISC, it's still Intel,

I suspect the IA-64 will quietly fade away.  It hasn't lived up to the
hype and even Intel seem to acknowledge this by licensing the amd64.

>and lots of RAM (the fastest machine SunOS 4.1.4 could run on -- and
>I've heard that 4.1.4 did have very alpha SMP support, similar to what

SMP support started earlier than 4.1.4.  The sun4m machines (SS470,
SS670) were the first SMP machines and ISTR they were supported in
the last 4.0.x or early 4.1.x releases.  (I was using them at the
time but the details have faded a bit after 15 years).

>Linux and the modern BSDs used for a long time, that being a "big giant
>lock" [mutex] around the kernel).

Most early SMP systems worked this way - it's relatively easy to
implement and gives good CPU utilisation on CPU-intensive tasks (that
don't need the kernel much).

-- 
Peter Jeremy

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Wilko Bulte]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 06:50:52PM +1000, Peter Jeremy wrote..
> On Wed, 2006-May-17 15:30:47 -0700, Stuart, Jon wrote:

> >and lots of RAM (the fastest machine SunOS 4.1.4 could run on -- and
> >I've heard that 4.1.4 did have very alpha SMP support, similar to what
> 
> SMP support started earlier than 4.1.4.  The sun4m machines (SS470,
> SS670) were the first SMP machines and ISTR they were supported in
> the last 4.0.x or early 4.1.x releases.  (I was using them at the
> time but the details have faded a bit after 15 years).

I ran a SS670MP for a while.  ISTR 4.1.1 or somesuch was the first SunOS 
to run on it.

Wilko

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Wesley Parish]

Several comments spring to mind:
One - closed-source proprietary software development is a minefield waiting 
for the unwary;
Two - open-source development is self-administering as far as "contributions" 
goes, and we generally don't need people to go through on a similar "find the 
haystack -in-the-needle" search;
Three - there is usually a group of people willing to do this sort of work - 
voluntarily - as the Groklaw example shows us, so it's often more an inertia 
thingee than anything more serious.

And last but hardly least, given the rise of the law-suit residual company, 
etc, opening the source of such orphaned systems may become a necessity, 
because law-suits such as the SCO example, will succeed if the law in general 
is kept ignorant of computer history, etc.  In that case, opening the OSF1 
source tree would pay dividends in peace of mind.

Just some thoughts.

Wesley Parish

On Thu, 18 May 2006 20:36, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> On Thu, May 18, 2006 2:42 am, Wesley Parish wrote:
> > I'm wondering if it wouldn't be possible to talk Novell into releasing
> > the Unix SysVr* source code under some form of BSD/MIT X license
> > following the coming evaporation of Societe Commerciel du Ondit - the
> > SCOGroup Rumourmonging Machine.
> >
> >
> > Then get OSF1-"lite" released following that.  Eating an elephant - one
> > bite at a time.
>
> I think the problem with all these `just open source it' schemes is that
> they're simpler in theory than in practice.  In particular, in practice
> someone has to go through the source of the system checking for everything
> that might have been licensed from someone else and whose license
> agreements might prohibit its release.  Few of those things will
> (probably) have been kept track of, and the penalty for failure is that
> some nasty residual company which now owns the stuff you licensed comes
> down your throat.
>
> For orphaned systems this is a lot of work for no obvious gain (it
> wouldn't be orphaned if the organization that created it thought it had
> much value to them).
>
> A good example would probably be SunOS 4 - we already know that Sun are
> quite interested in open sourcing stuff given OpenSolaris, but SunOS 4
> hasn't been, presumably because it is full of stuff-they-don't-own and has
> no commercial value at all.
>
> --tim
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-------------
Mau ki ana, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku ki ana, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 19 May 2006, at 09:16, Wesley Parish wrote:
> Three - there is usually a group of people willing to do this sort  
> of work -
> voluntarily - as the Groklaw example shows us, so it's often more  
> an inertia
> thingee than anything more serious.
>

I think this is off topic now, but the issue is that the company that  
signed the license agreements is the entity that is liable to be  
sued.  So it is their responsibility to ensure that they are safe  
from that.  That pretty much means it will cost them money, because  
*their* engineers and legal people will have to check things, and  
demonstrate to the satisfaction of the officers of the company (who  
carry the can if they get sued) that it's OK.

This doesn't mean it can't happen (as said in another branch of this,  
people within Sun have tried it before) but it does mean it's  
competing with other stuff for resource.  Would Sun (say) improve  
their chances of survival by  to open source SunOS 4 (which, although  
people romanticise it now, actually sucked, even at the time - it was  
only being better than early SunOS 5 and being a long time ago that  
make it seem nice) or to open source Java?  Or by doing neither?

Sorry for the rant, I'll shut up now.

--tim

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Michael Sokolov]

Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:

> A good example would probably be SunOS 4 - we already know that Sun are
> quite interested in open sourcing stuff given OpenSolaris, but SunOS 4
> hasn't been [...]

Yes it has been open sourced, albeit by force since they refused to do
it voluntarily:

ifctfvax.Harhan.ORG:/pub/UNIX/thirdparty/SunOS/sunos-414-source.tar.gz

SF

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Norman Wilson]

Michael Sokolov, it was, that writted:

  Then why don't YOU release it as open source?  Yes, you personally.
  Pull out your personal copy of the source (I sure hope you've had enough
  brains to smuggle one home with you when you left HP/Comfuq), put it on
  a bunch of Free Software FTP sites (IFCTF would gladly host it), and
  announce it to the world.  And while you are at it, shoot a few cops and
  hang their heads on a wall as war trophys (in the humanity's war for
  liberation of all software, of course).

====

You silly, twisted boy, you.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
Idiot Connoisseur

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Lyrical Nanoha]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1479 bytes --]

On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv at monmouth.com wrote:

> I have heard some grumblings of TOG possibly releasing CDE as open source,
> but have no idea of where that stands.  To be perfectly frank, it had a
> lot of problems, especially in a 64-bit world.  There were too many word
> size assumptions, and a very good friend struggled for many, many hours
> fixing those problems before it went to DEIL in India for support.  It
> could probably still benefit from a good �many eyes� developer review and
> bug fix session in the hands of open source developers.  However, IMHO, it
> no longer has any advantage over KDE or Gnome, but, as I said, that is my
> opinion.

It's not a matter of advantage so much as it's been a de-facto standard 
for so long and I'd just like to work with it even if it's just a clone 
like Lesstif.

> OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX was already branded as UNIX, and it would be
> fun to see what would happen to the landscape if a branded UNIX was free.
> Unfortunately, too many proprietary licensed pieces of code in the HP
> version, especially in System V support, for that to ever happen. Oh well,
> we can all dream �

Well, there is the Solaris stuff, and some of it's gone into Heirloom, 
which I believe is an attempt to bring together the existing open-sourced 
Unix code, and bring it up to date.  And I think Lesstif is a good enough 
clone of Motif for the majority of programs, in the way that Linux is of 
Unix, or am I wrong?

-uso.

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Michael Sokolov]

patv at monmouth.com wrote:

> Personally, I^Rd love to see OSF1 released open source.

Then why don't YOU release it as open source?  Yes, you personally.
Pull out your personal copy of the source (I sure hope you've had enough
brains to smuggle one home with you when you left HP/Comfuq), put it on
a bunch of Free Software FTP sites (IFCTF would gladly host it), and
announce it to the world.  And while you are at it, shoot a few cops and
hang their heads on a wall as war trophys (in the humanity's war for
liberation of all software, of course).

You've also mentioned in another post about good jobs in your area going
away.  Why don't you offer your technical skills and expertise to Iran?
I'm sure your engineering expertise would be useful to their nuclear
weapons program, and you could thus put your skills to serve a good
cause, helping make missiles to annihilate evil copyrighting nations.

Space Falcon,
Programletarian Freedom Fighter,
Interplanetary Internationale

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[patv]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2543 bytes --]

I have heard some grumblings of TOG possibly releasing CDE as open source,
but have no idea of where that stands.  To be perfectly frank, it had a
lot of problems, especially in a 64-bit world.  There were too many word
size assumptions, and a very good friend struggled for many, many hours
fixing those problems before it went to DEIL in India for support.  It
could probably still benefit from a good �many eyes� developer review and
bug fix session in the hands of open source developers.  However, IMHO, it
no longer has any advantage over KDE or Gnome, but, as I said, that is my
opinion.

Personally, I�d love to see OSF1 released open source.  There were
experimental x86 and two Itanium versions in various states of completion
floating around DEC/Compaq/HP.  I was part of the last Itanium effort
before the HP merger.  That one booted to single user before the project
was killed.

OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX was already branded as UNIX, and it would be
fun to see what would happen to the landscape if a branded UNIX was free.
 Unfortunately, too many proprietary licensed pieces of code in the HP
version, especially in System V support, for that to ever happen. Oh well,
we can all dream �

Pat

 

> On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv at monmouth.com wrote:
> 
> > Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was the
> > closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan facility (UNX).
> > This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and
> > everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for kernel,
> > drivers, and several other components (although I personally did some
> > kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, about 1/2 of X,
> > Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of the OS that made it
> > useful.  If you look at old uucp headers anywhere on usenet, any of the
> > traffic with headers that included systems with "unx" in the name was
> > routed through this facility.  I was there from when it was Digital
> > through Compaq and finally HP, almost all the way through to the closing.
> 
> It would be nice if CDE were free, the rest is either part of the Heirloom 
> project or cloned in some open-source system (e.g., Lesstif). --;
> 
> -uso.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Monmouth Internet MI-Webmail.
http://www.monmouth.com/

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Lyrical Nanoha]

On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv at monmouth.com wrote:

> Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was the
> closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan facility (UNX).
> This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and
> everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for kernel,
> drivers, and several other components (although I personally did some
> kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, about 1/2 of X,
> Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of the OS that made it
> useful.  If you look at old uucp headers anywhere on usenet, any of the
> traffic with headers that included systems with "unx" in the name was
> routed through this facility.  I was there from when it was Digital
> through Compaq and finally HP, almost all the way through to the closing.

It would be nice if CDE were free, the rest is either part of the Heirloom 
project or cloned in some open-source system (e.g., Lesstif). --;

-uso.

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[patv]

Just a personal commentary on that article from the local newspaper.

I live in Freehold, a few miles from the Holmdel facility, and I used to
work in Holmdel some time back.  I worked on several 68K based boards used
in a product called DACS.  I worked on both hardware and firmware,
maintained UNIX for several groups, struggled with nmake and software
manufacturing for several products (bugging both Glenn Fowler and David
Korn when new nmake releases broke builds), supported the pcc compiler as
a cross compiler, etc., for DACS and other products.  I was also
responsible for the architecture of something called the Line Monitoring
Equipment (LME), used in some undersea cable systems, well before
Submarine Systems was sold off to Tyco.  I can't tell you how many hours I
spent in that building.  It was fun.

Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was the
closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan facility (UNX).
 This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and
everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for kernel,
drivers, and several other components (although I personally did some
kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, about 1/2 of X,
Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of the OS that made it
useful.  If you look at old uucp headers anywhere on usenet, any of the
traffic with headers that included systems with "unx" in the name was
routed through this facility.  I was there from when it was Digital
through Compaq and finally HP, almost all the way through to the closing.

In general, the whole area is undergoing a massive transition.  If I had
to guess, I'd say it is mostly due to the downswing in telecom, followed
closely by the closing of Fort Monmouth.  The latter, I think, is the
death blow for technology in this region.

For hardware developers, not much left at all around the area, and
software people have to either go financial in NYC, or work for a
pharmaceutical or insurance company.  Not much room left for innovation
here.  Sad.

Pat


> 
> http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/BUSINESS/604300358/1003
> 
> Coming down
> 
> The developer buying Lucent Technologies' 472-acre campus in Holmdel 
> plans to tear down the massive 2-million-square-foot research center 
> that has been home to Bell Labs for the past 44 years.
> Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/30/06
> BY DAVID P. WILLIS
> BUSINESS WRITER


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Monmouth Internet MI-Webmail.
http://www.monmouth.com/

[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[tuhs]

http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/BUSINESS/604300358/1003

Coming down

The developer buying Lucent Technologies' 472-acre campus in Holmdel 
plans to tear down the massive 2-million-square-foot research center 
that has been home to Bell Labs for the past 44 years.
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/30/06
BY DAVID P. WILLIS
BUSINESS WRITER

As the sale of Lucent Technologies' behemoth Bell Labs research center 
on Crawfords Corner Road in Holmdel moves forward, one thing seems certain.

Preferred Real Estate Investments Inc., a developer that specializes in 
redeveloping obsolete buildings and properties, will knock down the 2 
million-square-foot structure, one of the largest office buildings in 
New Jersey.

"I have walked through that building a dozen times. It is a crime that 
we can't figure out a way to reuse this building," said Michael G. 
O'Neill, founder and chief executive officer of Preferred Real Estate 
Investments. "There is just no way. It is just absolutely and utterly 
unusable."

The way the building was designed, using concrete structural walls and 
hallways that run along the outside of the building, makes it impossible 
to redevelop, O'Neill said. "It was built for a single purpose that no 
longer exists," he said.

The company has not yet determined how it will take down the building. 
The large ponds on the property, as well as its road system, will be 
used by the developer.

Lucent is selling the six-story building to Preferred for an undisclosed 
price. On Thursday, Lucent spokesman John Skalko said a closing on the 
deal is "imminent."

The original building opened in 1962 and was expanded in 1964 and 1982. 
It was once home to as many as 5,600 employees. But only 1,054 work 
there now as Lucent has cut jobs and spun off businesses. The company 
plans to move the remaining workers to offices in Murray Hill and 
Whippany by the end of August 2007 as it seeks to make the most use of 
its real estate holdings.

Meanwhile, Preferred Real Estate Investments, a developer based in 
Conshohocken, Pa., said it will involve township officials and residents 
to come up with a plan for the 472-acre property.

Neighbor Barbara Daly said she would like to see any future development 
limited to the building's current location on the large property.

She also worried about traffic. Even at its height, Lucent's staggered 
work hours kept traffic down, said Daly, who has lived in Holmdel for 14 
years.

"Part of the charm of Holmdel is the rural feeling," said Daly. "I don't 
think we need structures visible from Crawfords Corner Road or Roberts 
Road."

Holmdel resident Teresa M. Graw said the property should continue to be 
used for office and laboratory space by high-tech companies.

"Any new construction should go forward with an understanding and 
respect for the beautiful open spaces, panoramic views and high 
environmental quality that the property offers, for these attributes are 
truly what will continue to bring the most added value to the property 
in the long run," Graw said in an e-mail.

The design of the new buildings could take into account the 
architectural significance of the original, she said. It was designed by 
Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, the designer of the Gateway Arch in St. 
Louis, and is encased in a shell of reflective glass.

"It seems to me that they have to somehow capture that, the history, the 
flavor of the property's past," Graw said.

O'Neill said there is no formal plan yet for the property. The company 
does not contemplate any industrial, retail or high-density residential 
housing development there.

"This property is a magnificent setting for corporate users," O'Neill 
said. "While the buildings are antiquated, the site should be very, very 
attractive."

Preferred also would keep the property's water tower, designed by 
Saarinen, which people say looks like a giant transistor.

"We think that is really neat," O'Neill said. "The significance of 
telecommunications shouldn't be forgotten."

He believes any design for the property would include several buildings, 
which would total less than 2 million square feet of office space.

He also said they will have to try to explore some other "low density 
use," such as age-restricted housing, that may be appropriate for the 
site. The property is currently zoned for office and laboratory use. Any 
other type of development may require a zoning change, said Christopher 
Shultz, the township administrator.

"We know the sensitivity of the open space along the road and the view," 
O'Neill said. "The challenge we have on this site is to maintain that 
bucolic feeling, but create something that is economic."

Founded in 1992, Preferred specializes in buying closed properties, such 
as manufacturing plants and corporate offices or headquarters, which 
were central locations in a town. The company owns properties from 
Connecticut to Georgia worth more than $1.5 billion.

"We go in and look at these things that have clearly become antiquated 
from what they were," O'Neill said. "We figure out how to design and 
envision a new life for those sites."

In Hamilton in Mercer County, Preferred is redeveloping an old toilet 
factory formerly owned by American Standard Cos., converting the 
World-War-I-era building into 450,000 square feet of office space.

Hamilton Mayor Glen Gilmore said Preferred worked with the township, 
creating a building that is filling with tenants.

"They are people who keep their word and are able to take a challenging 
project and do something unique with it," Gilmore said of the developer.

In Holmdel, Preferred executives have already introduced themselves to 
officials and plan on having a public meeting with residents as well.

Mayor Serena DiMaso said the town is looking forward to working with 
Preferred.

The township wants to protect its tax base, DiMaso said. Lucent, the 
township's largest taxpayer, paid $3.19 million in taxes last year on 
the property, which is assessed at $98.5 million.

"We made them understand that we need the ratable base to remain as 
constant as it can be," DiMaso said. "They (residents) understand that 
it cannot be Lucent anymore. They are willing to make the compromise for 
something else."

The mayor said she would like to see it continue to be a development 
with office or laboratory space. Preferred is aware of the township's 
commitment to open space, she said.

Township Committeeman Terence Wall said he envisions a corporate campus 
that does not include housing. The property also could include space for 
a library and offices for the board of education, which are now located 
in town hall, he said.

"They can achieve the return on the investment that they require without 
a housing component," Wall said.

Before the sale was announced last month, Holdmel's elected officials 
had asked the township's planner to look at the best uses for the 
property, including those that may require a zoning change, said 
Schultz. The planner also will look at whether the state's redevelopment 
law applies to the property.